Sunday, May 5, 2013

My explosive headline

I was in a college editing class many years ago, and our teacher had an exercise for us. He read a fictitious story, and we had to write a three-column, 36-point headline. I wrote eight headlines, but one of them still stands out.

This guy decides to commit suicide, so he shuts the windows and puts blankets around the base of the door to keep air out. He turns on the gas, lies down and awaits the long goodbye.

A half hour later, he wakes up and realizes the gas has gone out and air is getting into his apartment. It's a sign, he decides, so he opens the windows. He walks toward the plate-glass sliding doors and, in celebration of life, lights a cigarette...

And the explosion blows him through the glass. He has cuts all over his body, plus broken arms and legs, but, fortunately, the explosion is so powerful that it draws attention, and paramedics save him.

Most of my headlines were safe, and I don't remember any of them. One or two of them were clever. Then there was the big one.

Suicide Attempt Backfires or: Man's Suicide Attempt backfires

I've never had the nerve to see if it'd actually fit a 36-point, three-column hole (the alternate might fit better), and I doubt any managing editor in the country would use it. (I hope not.)

I've written dozens of better headlines over the years, but that one sticks in my mind.

If you want a cold, funny and accurate headline, that one fits.

Put out that cigarette. Boom.

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ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
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Saturday, May 4, 2013

An editor and a writer working together

Years ago, a newspaper writer working at a newspaper,came to me and complained that I was changing his articles. I was taking out words, he said, and he wondered why. After all, he reasoned, I didn't need to shorten the story, so why cut words?

I explained that, if he said the same thing with fewer words, the story would be better. Shakespeare wasn't great because he used a lot of extra words; it was because he used EVERY WORD so eloquently. This guy was no Bill Shakespeare, and I couldn't turn him into one. But I could make him better.

Later in the week, the same writer came back and wondered if I could cut something out of the high-school page to get more of his story in. I showed him the newspaper page and asked what we could cut. Nothing, he said, after looking at the page carefully. I waited, and he asked if he could cut the story himself. Sure, I said, not revealing that that was exactly what I wanted. Twenty minutes later, he came back and said the story was done. It was tight and exactly the way he wanted. And it fit.

Thereafter, he came by every Saturday and told me his story was there. I put it on the page, and he went away and trimmed it to fit. He jammed every bit of information into each of those 16-inch stories.

The moral? When I was cutting his stories and tightening them, he complained. When he realized they HAD to be that length, he cut and tightened them himself. It was a great collaboration between writer and editor, a rarity in any business.

Even rarer, we were both happy.

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ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)
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