Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Journalism and the rise of the novel, 1700–1875: Daniel Defoe to George Eliot
- Chapter 2 Literary realism and the fictions of the industrialized press, 1850–1915: Mark Twain to Theodore Dreiser
- Chapter 3 Reporters as novelists and the making of contemporary journalistic fiction, 1890–today: Rudyard Kipling to Joan Didion
- Chapter 4 The taint of journalistic literature and the stigma of the ink-stained wretch: Joel Chandler Harris to Dorothy Parker and beyond
- Epilogue: The future of journalistic fiction and the legacy of the journalist-literary figures: Henry James to Tom Wolfe
- Appendix: The major journalist-literary figures: their writings and positions in journalism
- Notes
- Index
Chapter 3 - Reporters as novelists and the making of contemporary journalistic fiction, 1890–today: Rudyard Kipling to Joan Didion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 July 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Journalism and the rise of the novel, 1700–1875: Daniel Defoe to George Eliot
- Chapter 2 Literary realism and the fictions of the industrialized press, 1850–1915: Mark Twain to Theodore Dreiser
- Chapter 3 Reporters as novelists and the making of contemporary journalistic fiction, 1890–today: Rudyard Kipling to Joan Didion
- Chapter 4 The taint of journalistic literature and the stigma of the ink-stained wretch: Joel Chandler Harris to Dorothy Parker and beyond
- Epilogue: The future of journalistic fiction and the legacy of the journalist-literary figures: Henry James to Tom Wolfe
- Appendix: The major journalist-literary figures: their writings and positions in journalism
- Notes
- Index
Summary
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
– Graham GreeneWriting has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
– Truman CapoteThat is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best – make it all up – but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.
– Ernest HemingwayGet your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
– Rudyard Kipling quoting Mark TwainIt is fair to say that Richard Wright found a journalist's way to become inspired to write his most critically acclaimed novel, Native Son. All across the floor of his New York City apartment in 1938, he spread hundreds of clippings that had been sent to him by friends about the murder trial of Robert Nixon, a young black man in Chicago who was accused of killing five women and raping others. Wright would read the clippings over and over again as a way to impress the story into his imagination.
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- Journalism and the NovelTruth and Fiction, 1700–2000, pp. 135 - 157Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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