What editing magazine stories taught me about writing
An incomplete list, on occasion of going freelance again.
Personal News, as they say: I’ve left GQ, and am freelance again.
I have complicated feelings about being freelance in 2025. (Nervous doesn’t cover it.) But I am genuinely excited to be out reporting again, after spending the last four years almost exclusively editing long magazine stories. My intention is for that to include much more regular posting on this Substack — which for now I’m calling, appropriately, Personal News — until I figure out what this newsletter should be. Ideas in the comments, please.
For now, partially prompted by a recent seminar I gave to some students at Johns Hopkins, here are a few things that more than a decade of editing magazine stories has taught me about writing.
The first person is overrated. One of the most common notes I have sent to writers is: do you need to be in this? Putting yourself in the story is tempting, and often the easiest way to do things, but rarely the right one. If it’s an extremely personal essay, sure. If it’s a celebrity profile, unless your presence is wildly important to the narrative, keep it out.
Treat your editors better. Some writers believe they can survive without editors, or replace them with AI. If you find that works, good for you! I am not one of those writers, and have worked with vanishingly few of them. An editor isn’t just a proofreader and catcher of excessive -en dashes. They’re a sounding board, confidant, reporting assistant, and occasionally human lawyer shield. Treat them accordingly!
Know what service you are providing. I tend to loosely classify nonfiction writers as either ‘reporting-first’ or ‘voice-first’. David Grann is the classic case of reporting first: his prose is relatively straight, but the pyrotechnics come in the astonishing level of detail he unearths, and the mastery of how he structures those details to form a narrative. Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Sam Anderson are voice first: from the first paragraph, you know that you’re settling in to be entertained, or moved. That’s not to say that voice-first writers aren’t great reporters, or that reporting-first writers can’t turn in gorgeous sentences. (To the contrary!) It’s more about knowing your strengths, because I guarantee that the editors in your life talk about you in this way, and assign stories accordingly.
How you take feedback is as important as how you write. Two kinds of writers argue with their editors. The first are inexperienced writers; the second are extremely experienced writers. In both cases, I think arguing is fine — in fact, I encourage it (and am guilty of it myself). There are also cases in which your editor is wrong! What you learn after editing a few hundred stories is that the tone of the argument is the most important thing. Of the very few times I’ve seen writers blacklisted from a publication, it was because they were rude. Editors are on your side; even if you disagree, understand where the note is coming from, and remember that both of you want the same outcome, ie a great and most importantly published story.
Every story has two arcs. Good writers trace the narrative arc of a story: set-up, rising action, climax, etc. The function of the narrative arc in nonfiction is largely context: what does the reader need to know at this point, in order to follow the story? Not enough writers think about the emotional arc — that is, what do you want the reader to be feeling at this point? The opening to your story might require excitement or intrigue, in order to propel the reader through another 5,000 words. But maybe you want the emotional climax to be one of catharsis, or outrage. How you get the reader to that point is the emotional arc. The pieces you feel are the pieces you remember.
If your first paragraph is a proposition… When I’m writing or editing, I’ll often spend hours on the opening. Why? In the attention economy, writers have to do everything you can to arrest the reader and stop that thumb from doomscrolling. And the opening paragraph isn’t just about a gripping set-up — it’s also setting up the tone of voice and the emotional stakes of the piece.
…Your ending is the payoff. The reason most pieces fail is the ending. (This is also the reason that I tell writers to never pitch a question unless you know the answer.) Most of the time, when we talk about an ending, what we’re actually talking about is closure. If you don’t get closure, readers feel cheated. They also won’t share it. There’s a reason that so many great pieces have a circular structure, where the ending returns to the beginning of the story — it provides a natural sense of closure. But it’s not the only way to do things. What matters is that you should finish reading every story a tiny bit changed as a person.
In the age of AI, voice is everything again. I think as writing (and to an extent, expertise) has become commodified by AI, and most people can spot the LinkedIn diction of LLM slop, the nonfiction writers who survive are going to be those who can either do A) amazingly unique ideas B) hyper-dogged reporting, or C) an unmistakable tone of voice. I predict that gonzo reporting and the hyper-stylised prose of the DFW era are coming back in a big way. And about time!
Observation is your greatest weapon. Many of my favourite writers are actually pretty quiet, but instead use reporting to devastating effect. I often think of Tom Lamont’s story about the Grenfell tower disaster, and how he notes that family members were posting pictures of the missing on walls using packing tape, “so that many pictures of presumed victims were bordered with the same word printed over and over again: FRAGILE.”
Learn to think like a fact-checker. I could write a whole post about the joys of being fact-checked. I think it’s wild that
most1many big British publications (and indeed book publishing) views fact-checking as an unaffordable indulgence, or worse, an American affectation. For my part, I find that thinking like a fact-checker makes me a better editor and a better journalist. So, ask yourself: is this hyperbole? Am I oversimplifying? Could I be more transparent about sourcing here? Is this sentence as clear as it could be? I have often found that the result is greater concision and clarity, both of which your reader will appreciate.Never, ever watch the Google Doc edits in real time.
BELOW THE FOLD
1. I finally got around to listening to ‘Blood In The Machine’, a history of the Luddites by Brian Merchant. Like most, I knew almost nothing about the Luddites, or the industrial revolution for that matter, and was poorer for it. Its themes - of maniacal tech barons, egotistical rulers, and economic anxiety creating social unrest - is Extremely Topical, to say the least.
2. The HBO Max edit of Mad Men accidentally includes shots of the crew responsible for Roger’s barf machine. This gives me the perfect opportunity to express my controversial but long-held belief that Mad Men is wildly overrated, and aging worse than Pete Campbell’s hairline.
3. I read this piece by Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne with my hand over my mouth in horror. It’s a tough piece to get through, but both it and the Guardian’s ongoing series on the Free Birth Society are the kind of courageous journalism that will save many lives.
Unverifiable, as a fact-checker would say: how about ‘many’?
Legendary run, Oli. That Mad Men take is so hot it deserves a paywall.
This is excellent advice and a post I think I’ll return to often! Thank you.