{"id":16135,"date":"2025-09-19T11:31:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=16135"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:31:58","slug":"finding-your-books-main-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2025\/09\/19\/finding-your-books-main-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding your book’s main characters"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Sign up for the Nieman Storyboard newsletter,<\/em><\/a> delivered every Friday in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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***<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Dear Storyboard community, <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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This week, contributor Carly Stern<\/a> has a new annotation for us<\/a> \u2014\u00a0a chapter from journalist Megan Greenwell’s book, \u201cBad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream,\u201d<\/a> published by HarperCollins this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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What started as a personal story for Greenwell \u2014 she was editor-in-chief of Deadspin when the private equity firm Great Hill Partners acquired its parent company, Gizmodo Media Group \u2014 turned into a deeply reported examination of private equity’s impact on many businesses and industries, including the media. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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This week, we are once again seeing the results<\/a>, as corporate mergers and megadeals become bargaining chips for controlling free speech in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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To tell the larger story of private equity, Greenwell needed to zoom in on the personal. And that meant doing an enormous amount of legwork to uncover the right main characters for her book:<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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This was by far the hardest part. I knew I needed people who readers were going to want to spend a lot of time with. I had three characters in the proposal but four in the book. One from the proposal ended up in the book.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n \n

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I did so much grunt work to find them. A lot of LinkedIn searching for people who had previously worked at various companies. A ton of scouring Facebook groups and Reddit, and talking to nonprofit groups to see who they recommended. I was trying to plumb every possible avenue. I talked to a little over 300 people for the book as a whole, and almost 150 of those were potential protagonists. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Greenwell’s annotated chapter shows us the results of that time-consuming research, and how she wove it together. It’s about two people whose lives were changed by the toy store chain, Toys R Us. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Understanding how an author does her work can have unpredictable ripple effects. As Stern, a longtime Storyboard contributor, said of her conversation with Greenwell: \u201cAs someone who underwent a different media meltdown that influenced my career path<\/a>, I felt echoes of my own experience in Megan\u2019s story. This conversation got my gears turning about how our own personal experiences as writers are often a gateway into the questions that animate our work. But the question of where to situate our perspective in that work is ultimately a choice. And as a narrative journalist who\u2019s long been drawn to the idea of someday writing a book myself, our conversation also reinforced the importance of marinating. Sometimes the best ideas need to simmer until a story is truly ripe and we are ready.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Megan Greenwell on holding out for the once-in-a-lifetime book idea<\/a><\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\"Megan<\/a>
Megan Greenwell. Photo by Loreto Caceres<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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The journalist and debut author reflects on the merits of waiting until she was seized by an obsession and couldn\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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[ <\/strong>Read the story<\/strong><\/a> ]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Links of note <\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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