Chapter 161: Power and Narrative

I’d drafted a newsletter earlier this week but the aftermath of the presidential election did not feel like the moment to talk about refining storytelling techniques. 

Instead I want to write what came to me, quite vividly despite the hour, on election night at 3 in the morning, when it became clear where things were heading. I am not interested in identifying sides, attaching blame, and engaging in the post mortems that began in the early morning and will surely extend for days, weeks and probably months. 

I want to talk about storytelling. Because that is what we do.

I do not want to assume how you are reacting to the result; assuming is a cardinal sin in journalism, one committed far too often. Whether the outcome upset you or pleased you, there is something I believe both sides must acknowledge: the nation, and the world upon which America plays an outsized role, is no longer the same. How it will look, how it will work, the impact of changes anticipated though not yet enacted, is unknown, even amidst the torrent of speculation about the near and longer term future. 

Change brings chaos, and the kind of change being proposed – I needn’t go into the details of Project 2025 or the takeaways of every MAGA rally – will make previous changes of Administration feel tame. 

There are wise and insightful journalists whose work it is to assess policy, politics and, inevitably, how all this will play out in the midterms and beyond. So too are there scholars whose work and knowledge will focus on the big questions of how we got here, and how America as it will come to be on January 20, 2025 compares with this nation and others at transformative moments in history. 

I am grateful for their wisdom. But I, and we, play a different and equally vital role. 

I am a nonfiction storyteller. Other writers – I think first of my younger child, who writes terrific fiction – possess imaginations that I look on with wonder; how did they ever imagine such a world into being? I cannot do that. But I can report. I can pose questions and go in search of answers, knowing full well that my initial question may prove to be the wrong one and that, as I learn more, I will need to pivot, to alter the paths of my reporting as I ask a new question, and maybe another. 

My job as a reporter is to listen to people tell me their stories. I ask questions designed to draw out those stories. When you ask the questions that encourage people to tell you their  stories, if you show that you are genuinely interested in what they have to say – even if what they say troubles or even appalls you – they come alive. Your questions prompt them; they begin to recall moments and events, people and anecdotes that they may not have thought about in a very long time. 

They tell you things that they may have never told anyone else, because they wish to share them, or unburden themselves, or feel the need to justify. There are many other reasons. They are just a few.

I - we – collect their stories. We put them into Google Docs or save transcripts of Otter recordings, or turn down the corner of the pages in our notebooks to make sure we can draw upon what we’ve learned when the time comes to write.

We are nowhere without those stories – whether they come in an interview (which when done best feels like a conversation), or letters discovered in archives long untouched and which may read like only half of a conversation but which often tell stories, sometimes as confessions, sometimes as confidences. The process of gathering, ordering and distilling those stories allows us to answer the questions which set our journeys of inquiry in motion. And then, and only then, are we ready to write. 

The writing puts us in a rare and privileged position: it transforms us into a vital bridge between the people whose stories we have heard and those who will read what we have learned.

In doing so we introduce strangers to one another. We allow our readers to meet, hear, and get to know – grudgingly, perhaps but still… – people who are otherwise unknown, and perhaps unliked.

It is not our job to make people like, appreciate or accept each other. Some differences are too great to overcome. But when we do our work fairly and honestly no reader can say they didn’t listen, learn and arrive at a deeper level of understanding.

The months and years to come will be chaotic and I fear, ugly and frightening. It will do me no good to listen only to the stories of those with whom I agree; my family and friends offer all the reassurance and comfort I need. But if part of writing is an attempt to impose some order on chaos, to organize the universe into a place that can be understood, then I am compelled to pose a question I need to answer, and if that question does not bring me closer to understanding – or order – then pose another question and maybe another.  Then I need to go in search of people who will tell me their stories, whether or not I like what they have to say.

At 3 in the morning I felt powerless. It is an awful feeling. But this is the only pathway I know to resolving that feeling. I’ve done it enough times to know it works. I know enough to understand that in a moment so fraught and so unsettling, nonfiction writers possess a rare power: people will stop and pay attention if we deliver to them a story they cannot put down, a story that will take them someplace they’ve never been, filled with people they’ve never met and whom they never knew.

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If you have a question, a problem in your work, if you are feeling lost, stuck, confused, at sea, searching, grappling, or baffled, email me at Michaelshapiro808@gmail.com and tell me what you’re confronting and what help you need.

It is seldom, if ever, the case that one student’s problem or question is their’s alone.

Please indicate if you want to remain anonymous, have your name or just first name included. I will include the question and then answer it as best I can.

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Nothing good ever came from writers punishing themselves. We know writing is hard. We’re here to show that it doesn’t have to be torture