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The final quote, he told the audience, needs to be in your voice, with your tone, not the black and white words.
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The quote is polished in your prose.” When prodded further, Talese said he would ask the questions again and again so that he could refine and get at what they really meant. How do you accurately capture quotes without a recording device? Talese told the audience, “Don’t use a tape recorder, because then you have their exact words.
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Talese learned early how to fade into the background as he watched his mom talk to her dress shop customers, as they tried on clothes while “discussing their private lives and the happenings and misadventures of their friends and neighbors.” When asked how to develop that trust, Talese said, “Journalism is like going out on a date.” Be Polite and Learn How to Ask Questions without Being Nosy. Talk to People at Length or Learn the Art of Hanging Out.Īnother writer who speaks of this is Kurt Vonnegut, who said, “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”ħ. It’s in another context that the quote becomes a gem.”Ħ. So I sometimes incorporate what has gone obscure in other people’s work. Hell, I never interviewed Marilyn Monroe. I took it out and I stuck it in there, and it took on a meaningfulness, a dimension. I lifted it out of a magazine article about Marilyn Monroe that was written by Maurice Zolotow. In the recently annotated version of his essay “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” –– published by Nieman Storyboard –– Gay spoke of the inventive way he sourced a particular quote for use in the profile: “That quote was published. Do More Research Than You Think Is Necessary. Many of the scoops Talese wrote about he got because of his in-person doggedness: showing up at Nita Naldi’s hotel, talking to the headline operator in theater district, the groundskeeper at a pet cemetery.ĥ. House visits, phone calls, and the personal touch have been replaced by emails, texting, and tweeting. Of the inadequacy of the phone, Talese wrote: “I also believe people will reveal more of themselves to you if you are physically present.” Joan Didion also spoke of disliking the phone, not because it was a short cut, but rather because she didn’t like to talk.Ī helpful piece of advice, but as our world has become almost transparently public, so too has it become secretive and private. I didn’t ask if phone translated to the Internet but, based on this list, and my impressions, my guess is he would tell writers not to use the Internet, unless it was to get someone’s home address. Or like Talese, never underestimate the value of a good first impression, or a three-piece suit. When he finally agreed to do the essay, he said, “It was almost better that Sinatra couldn’t talk to me.” Talese didn’t want to write about Frank Sinatra for Esquire because, as he told us, everything had already been written about Sinatra. In his essay, “Origins of a Nonfiction Writer,” Talese writes of his “eavesdropping youth” spent in his mother’s dress shop, which was “a kind of talk show that flowed around the engaging manner of my mother.” This notion of curiosity is seen in the minor characters –– the ordinary people –– he championed throughout his career, as in “ Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” where the entire interview is an amalgam of minor characters, from the lady who held Sinatra’s wigs to the press agent and the preening blondes on barstools. Talese noted would land me a job at The New York Times. Without further scene setting, here are 10 things I learned that Mr.
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As I sat listening to the famed journalist in conversation with Max Linsky of, at an October 10 event at NYU, I found myself scribbling as fast as the words came out of his mouth. Gay Talese is not exactly a household name, but in the world of writers he is very well known. He was wearing a three-piece, olive green, wool blend suit, and, casually placed atop a table, was his patterned silk scarf and hat.