The Lessons I Learned from Journalism

How my ink stained years inform my fiction writing.

Happy New Year, Substack fam. It’s been a minute. Nearly a month, in fact. 

I had planned to keep posting through the holidays, but I often have trouble actually relaxing on breaks and decided, this year, to do a bit of that instead—especially because my kids were off from school and we were visiting some family we don’t get to see all that often.

Before I get going, here are some cool things that happened since we were last in contact that are related to my forthcoming debut novel, VICTIM: 

1. I revealed the incredible blurb that the OG, and one of my literary heroes,

   Junot Díaz
   recently blessed me with. “You only get debuts this blazing once in a generation if you’re lucky,” he said. What? Yeah. Best believe I’m still living off the high. 

2. LitHub named VICTIM one of their most anticipated reads of 2024 and called your boy a “a keen observer of culture and a talented storyteller with style to spare,” which was very nice of them. 

3. Real Simple magazine named VICTIM one of their most anticipated reads of 2024 along with works by some serious heavy hitters. Being in this company is a true honor.  

Now, onto the main event.

---

Last year, a couple readers asked me how my career in journalism informed and/or helped my career in fiction. It’s an excellent question, and something I’ve been excited to write about since. 

But first, some necessary background info. 

Before I ever wrote a page of fiction, I wanted to be a journalist.

This, initially, had nothing to do with lofty goals like informing the public or holding truth to power. I fell in love with journalism because it was in the pages of the Daily News, New York Post, and the work specifically of David Gonzalez in The New York Times, that I first encountered writers who came from similar backgrounds as my own and made a living using their words to tell stories. 

A job that allowed you to do that felt like hitting the lotto.

By age 16 I was writing little features for my local print publication in the Bronx (they’re still around!). By age 18, through a mix of sheer luck, a highly-prized scholarship, and a bit of persuasive argumentation, I was interning at The New York Times before I ever stepped foot on a college campus. 

I interned there for three summers. After bombing out during my first attempt at completing an MFA (a story for another day), I dove head first into making a living as a journalist and freelance writer for the next eight years while working on my novel on the side. I freelanced for places like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and was a staff reporter for both The Daily Beast and The South Florida Sun Sentinel. 

I say all that to say this: I’ve been at the journalism game for a while. And while working as a full-time journalist for fast-paced news outlets certainly had its drawbacks in terms of carving out time for my fiction (I only sold my novel after leaving that life behind) my experiences taught me a ton, and inform how I approach, write, edit, and think about my creative work.

Here are some of the main lessons I learned.  

1. Don’t be precious about your words. 

“Kill your darlings” is a famous saying for a reason, but working as a journalist takes this maxim to a whole new level. A journalist, particularly a print journalist, will regularly see their copy slashed with no remorse. Perfectly good sentences, anecdotes, quotes, and details straight up murked in cold blood simply because your writing takes up too many column inches. 

Watching this carnage occur so often was great training for me as a fiction writer and taught me three important things: 

1. Sometimes, cuts need to be made in service of the larger goal of a story—even if you really, really like the things being cut. 

2. Oftentimes, a scene, a bit of dialogue, or even a simple description on the line level can be made snappier and more direct by trimming fat. 

3. You can always top whatever you think was your best line. 

2. Editors are, mostly, trying to help. 

I’ve worked with a couple dozen editors and I can only think of one that was terrible at their job and made my copy significantly worse. Everyone else ranged from capable to spectacular, and made suggestions and edits that, while painful to see at times (I’m visualizing the bloodbath of track changes on the first draft of my first big feature for the New York Times), almost always improved the story I was working on. 

While you don’t have to agree with everything an editor says, it is important to put your ego aside, and really think about what they’re saying. After all, they’re providing you an excellent service: a close, perhaps even annoying, reader who can point out things you can’t see because you’ve got your nose way too far up the ass of a story. While it can be hard to hear what they have to say at times, and especially when you’ve convinced yourself your work is “done,” the chances are quite high that what they have to say is correct.  

3. Hit your deadlines. 

Deadlines make the journalism industry go round, and being in the business made me respect them tremendously. Even before I had a book deal and a contract mandating me to turn in things by a certain time frame, I was able to force myself to finish drafts by a certain date I arbitrarily chose.  

Setting deadlines, and really sticking to them, forces you to make quick decisions and choices necessary to hit the deadline—instead of sitting around and waiting for inspiration to strike. Respecting deadlines and training yourself to hit them, ultimately teaches you to be consistent and produce words and vomit drafts, even when you aren’t 100 percent sure about them.

In my case, each and every time, those words, and uneven drafts, gave me something to work off of and improve. And even when I found what I produced wasn’t worth improving (this happens often), the exercise of “finishing” something by a deadline, stepping back, and reading it, often made clear what was missing, which is extremely helpful to know. 

4. Consider your audience. 

Writing for local newspapers in particular taught me to think about my readers and respect them. What do I mean by that? I mean respecting their time, their attention span, and the reason they purchased a newspaper in the first place. 

I’m not suggesting you try and jam the inverted pyramid structure into your novel, or ensure your first chapter covers the five W’s. When I think about respecting my readers in fiction, two big things come to mind: 

1. Page count. I’ve never been a fan of big, door stopper novels, though I appreciate that some people like to write them and some readers like to read them. When thinking about the length of a novel—something I don’t seriously consider until I’ve gotten a decent draft in the first place—I consider how I’d feel roaming a bookstore. I know I’m much more likely to take a chance on a 250 to 300-page novel over a 600-page one, and therefore I imagine my ideal reader to be the same and try to keep things as tight as I can, without sacrificing story in the process. 

2. Plot. VICTIM isn’t an action thriller, but it does have a plot. Things happen. The protagonist changes and grows. You know, the basics. That’s all I’m really saying here. Journalism taught me that a story needs to be about something happening, and needs to explain to the reader why that thing is important. In fiction the lesson I’ve applied from this is that something needs to be happening on the page, and while it doesn’t have to be overly dramatic, it should, at the very least, be entertaining. Give the people a reason to turn the page and find out what happens next. (As you might imagine, I’m not a huge fan of autofiction, or a lot of contemporary fiction that seems to be, basically, thinking and wandering on the page.) 

5. Read the comments, but don’t take them too seriously. 

While I haven’t gotten too many bad reviews for VICTIM yet (they’re coming, I know), people around me seem to be generally surprised at my thick skin for handling ones I’ve received so far. Working as a journalist and having my email publicly available played a role in developing this. I received all types of criticism and vile messages in my inbox. Racist names, threats, the whole gamut. More often than not, even if the messages weren’t dreadful, they came out of left field and had nothing to do with the story I actually wrote. 

What I learned by sifting through this is that some people will read my work with ill intentions no matter what. I can’t control it, and therefore, I shouldn’t bother getting worked up about it. My favorite practice, after a particularly nasty email, was to write back: “Thanks so much for your kind words! I hope you have a wonderful day.” 

That said, when there was a good faith critique of something I wrote, I took the time to sit and think about it. Sometimes I’d even respond to say thanks. This exchange with readers was some of the most fun I had as a journalist. 

Which is why I don’t really agree with the idea that you should never read your reviews, or never look at Goodreads. I look at mine. And if the reviews seem well intentioned, and there are nuggets of criticism that seem merited, I make a mental note and consider if it is worth applying that feedback to a future piece of work—if it is even possible to do that.

While I’m not trying to please all readers (breaking news: you can’t), I value the time they took to read my book, and I particularly value those who took the time to sit down and string together some competent thoughts about it. The least I can do is read them, and digest them—even if I don’t agree with them in the end. 

I realize I breezed through this list quickly. (Trying to hit a lot at once.) But if there is anything you’d like me to expand upon, please do sound off in the comments or reply directly to this email. I’d be happy to go into further depth, perhaps even in a future post if it seems worthwhile.

Peace, 

Andrew  

Recommendations: 

1. This interview between The Kid Mero and Roy Wood Jr on Mero’s new podcast, Victory Light. I respected both of these dudes tremendously before listening to this episode, but I respect them even more now that I’ve learned about their circuitous journeys and paths to where they are today. 

2. This piece from Derek Thompson of The Atlantic on how anxiety has become content.

3. One of the better profiles of writer/director Cord Jefferson on the heels of the release of his film American Fiction. 

4. Tyler Austin Harper, who has had a string of hits over the last six months or so, wrote a great piece on Claudine Gay’s resignation, and what it means for academia.  

5. This New Yorker Q&A with Justin Torres, one of my favorite modern writers. His new novel, BLACKOUTS, was fantastic. Read it, and read his debut, WE THE ANIMALS, too.