Mark Kramer

“Is an ending really another beginning?”
― Mark Kramer, Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University

“Without the telling, well-reported detail, the narrative form is an empty seduction. It’s us listening to ourselves talk, falling in love with the sound of our own voices. How do you find those telling details, the earned facts, and then convey them? It involves two opposite sets of skills. While reporting, you must lose control so you can accumulate the facts. While writing, you must exert maniacal control over those facts. You begin by being laid-back and hanging out. Take the great inhale so that when you exhale, you will have among your notebooks that detail that conveys so much, so economically. Weave that detail into the warp and weft of your hard facts. A”
― Mark Kramer, Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University