article writing

It Takes a Lot of Wax to Get That Article Polished

Posted on by Tom Bentley

My ride in the mid-80s, a ’62 Caddy. Lots and LOTS of wax.

There’s a spate of great long-form journalism these days. When the time is good, I hunker down and read thoughtful, or provocative or hilarious or touching pieces from Medium, The Atlantic, GQ, Esquire—there’s a long list. And often, these pieces read so smoothly that I forget—even though I’m in the trade—just how many winding roads articles can travel before they reache home.

Case in point: I had an article about a legendary train published in Popular Mechanics the other day. I hope that readers took that in with the same sense I allude to above: fun piece, and it reads easily. But in order to even begin communicating with the right Union Pacific PR folks, I had to leave three voice messages and send seven emails. The UP employee I needed to interview (and it seems, many UP employees on the project, including the PR people) was exhausted from the train’s complex restoration. So I had to grab a garbled transcript of a YouTube video to get many of his quotes for the piece.

Then there was a fair amount of back and forth with UP PR folks, obtaining photographs, talking with some other people involved with the train, and plenty of back and forth with the PopMech editor on how the piece was shaping up, and whether I could make my deadline, which at one point looked unlikely. But it did all come together.

Same thing with this piece I wrote on pot politics in Santa Cruz County. I had to interview five separate people for the article. But ALL of the initial emails to various growers and dispensaries and cannabis advocacy groups went unanswered. I had to dig around for a while to get the goods. And locating an illegal grower (who spoke on the record, but anonymously) took some legwork too. I had my doubts about this one as well, but it did come together in the end.

Articles Are Built in Stages (and Some Collapse)

My point (and there is one, really) is not to whine about how little Tommy’s spirit is crushed because people don’t answer his emails. The point is that articles are built in stages, and that sometimes there are gaps in the walls that have to be filled in later. I often request some time padding when an editor gives me a deadline, because getting primary-source information is often trickier than it might seem.

And I’m not an investigative reporter. Those people (or writers that are given assignments that require long days/weeks/months of research) have a special stamina. Here’s a piece I read yesterday on a crazy con man that lets you in a little on how much time it took to piece it all together—but know that it was actually a good deal more. The writer assembled this from bits and chunks, and it took time, but the engaging read is worth it. Here’s another about the “new sobriety” that’s gaining currency (not in my house), a piece with a lot of moving parts.

These writers built these articles a brick at a time, and from my own work, I know that some days they ran out of bricks. Sometimes they improvised, sometimes they left and gardened instead. But it’s funny how when you see the end product, even if you wrote it, you are both amazed that it came together, and forgetful of the wrinkled forehead of endless details. Probably just as it should be.

Magazine Editors (Gasp!) Are Actually Human Beings

Posted on by Tom Bentley

I know, I know, all of those editors who have rejected your queries or articles are obvious emissaries of Baal, troglodytes, fresh steaming cat poop or much worse. Over the submission years, I have declared them among the seven princes of Hell (or at least in the league of incompetent cable installers). But I recant my earlier denunciations, and with good reason.

For all of the queries flatly unanswered, or for those receiving the peremptory “We can’t use this,” there are editors who take the calculated moment from the lunacy of today’s publishing world and offer a statement of encouragement to the anxious author. Or better yet, a response that leads said author to explore another editorial opportunity with the publication, if the initial submission doesn’t cut it.

Here’s an example, using two magazine editors who both exhibit those alarming traits of decency. I’ve written for Airstream Life magazine for years. The editor, Rich Luhr, originally solicited me to write for his then-new magazine after he’d seen a piece of mine on Airstreams on the Net. Now, having an editor ask you for a piece out of the blue is gift enough, but over time Rich has grown to know my work, and often assigns a piece that’s tuned to my sensibilities. Props to the man.

Recently, he was working on a new specialty magazine for Mercedes owners. I put in some time on a few articles, but Rich couldn’t find the advertising base to support the publication. He had the grace to offer me a kill fee above the price I’d requested, because he knew I’d done a lot of research time. Above and beyond.

Do the Article Two-Step
That ties in well with an editor I just started corresponding with. She runs a Mercedes magazine in the UK, and I sent her one of the articles written for the lost US mag. We went back and forth a bit, and finally she decided that it wasn’t right for her. But I mentioned VERY casually at the end of my “thanks for listening” that I could write a piece about my chariot, an aged-but-stalwart 1981 SL 380.

Bingo! I have an assignment that I initially hadn’t conceived of, just because an editor took the time to explore the potential of other article ideas—or because they simply opened a conversation. There are a few lessons here, but the main ones are that once you are actually having a conversation with an editor, be conversant: recognize that they are open to you as a writer, even if they’re not immediately buying what you’re writing.

And once the conversational door is open, you can walk in so much more freely than if you are sending out your first (and oftentimes) stiff query. I recently had a series of email exchanges with the editor of an in-flight magazine. She didn’t go for my initial query, but took the time (in just a few sentences) to go over what the magazine was looking for. I sent her another query, which was discussed, and which prompted another. Now, none of these ideas actually worked for the magazine, but I know from the quality of our exchanges that I can approach this editor on a comfortable, conversant basis in the future.

Second Dates
And if you’ve published even one piece for a magazine, think to approach those editors again, if you have a quality idea. I have written pieces for a couple of editors who publish wine-and-spirits world magazines, and now I don’t have to write a formal query with my publishing credits and other tedium; I can start right in with “Hi Tim. I had an idea for a piece…”

Obviously, you don’t want to badger editors with lame queries so that they wonder why they ever published you in the first place, but once you have an editor’s ear, you’re miles ahead of the game. (If you try to get their other ear, though, they might press charges.)