Zooming in from Canada, Brendan Fitzgerald, a senior editor at Longreads, spoke to Hunter College students in Professor David Alm’s feature writing class about tips and tricks for long-form and feature style writing – and what separates a good story from a great one.
From reporting at his local daily news to the Columbia Journal Review to writing and curating as a senior editor, Fitzgerald has had his fair share of different types of writing styles.
One point Fitzgerald stressed is the importance of talking to others when writing and reporting.
“You won’t lose control of your story by sharing and asking questions,” he said.
Speaking with experts and breaking the boundaries of a story make it stronger. Good reporting is crucial to a story’s impact.
There is a balance of haughtiness and humility when writing. The reporter is in control, but as Fitzgerald told the class, “engage with a diversity of perspectives and lived experiences.
Meet with experts in a field you know nothing about.”
According to Fitzgerald, reporting is not just writing what you already know. It’s opening novels and genres that are foreign to you, and it’s thinking in uncomfortable ways.
“It’s an instructive way of shaking your thinking up,” he said.
The way to write a story that holds power is knowing when to ask questions and speak to others.
Longform writing allows the writer to speak to experts, hear perspectives, and experience the culture. That is how writers should be reporting, and that is the benefit of longform journalism: “it begins at a place of uncertainty and proceeds from there.”
