{"id":16990,"date":"2026-04-03T12:56:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T12:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=16990"},"modified":"2026-04-09T20:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T20:48:13","slug":"diaries-photos-films-create-narrative-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2026\/04\/03\/diaries-photos-films-create-narrative-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Using diaries, photos, and films to create narrative magic"},"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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At a Longreads event several years ago in New York City, a magazine writer was asked about one of his most famous longform features. The story included a harrowing flashback sequence with many precise details, and the audience was curious about how a journalist could recreate it with such confidence and clarity. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cHow did you report that scene?\u201d someone asked.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cWell,\u201d he replied, \u201cthere was a video.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It was like a magician revealing the mundane secret behind his best trick. The story’s terrifying and heart-pounding climax came from simply watching a video and writing what he saw. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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This moment provided a memorable lesson for me: Many of the best writers are clever reporters. And reporting is more than conducting interviews and finding primary sources \u2014 it’s uncovering long-buried archival material, observing details in photographs that others may have missed, and knowing how to shape all of it into a compelling story.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Author Sophie Elmhirst calls these elements the \u201cshards\u201d that every journalist should collect when writing narrative nonfiction. She speaks from experience: Elmhirst dug through an archive of personal diaries, photos, documentaries, and books to tell the story of a married couple, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, who survived 118 days lost at sea in 1973. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Her resulting book, \u201cA Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck<\/a>,\u201d became a runaway New York Times bestseller and was named a Best Book of 2025 by The New Yorker, NPR, TIME, Vogue, and The New York Times. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cYou don\u2019t find it as a perfect crystal vase. You find shards, and you have to fit them together,\u201d she tells Storyboard contributor Mallary Tenore Tarpley<\/a>. \u201cYou find a lot of waste material that doesn\u2019t fit into the vase that you have to get rid of, and you do a lot of your own work to fill out the structure \u2014 to turn that shard into something.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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This week at Storyboard, Elmhirst speaks with Tarpley about making narrative magic from deep reporting and research, and she annotates the first chapter to take us through her reporting and writing process. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Annotation: How Sophie Elmhirst wrote a bestselling nonfiction book that reads like fiction<\/a> <\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\"Sophie<\/a>
Sophie Elmhirst. Photo by Sophie Davidson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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\u201cIn a way, the only way you could understand how tiny and vulnerable and lost they were was to zoom right out until you could hardly see them at all. Having that sense of scale added another layer to the intimacy and claustrophobia of their life on the raft, and this was what interested me most of all \u2014 the idea of living in such inescapable proximity to your partner while surrounded by the terror of infinite empty space.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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[ Read the story<\/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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