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LC: The pitfall most would-be authors make is to assume that everyone in the world is chomping at the bit to read a story about the Middle Division of the Santa Fe, or the Aberdeen & Rockfish, or the design of Illinois Central 2-10-2s. Well, they're not. Most of them don't care. To avoid this, think about what 110,000 people spread all across the U.S. and Canada, and a good proportion in Europe, too, want to read about. The readers of Trains are from all walks of life, and include a sizeable proportion of railroad employees (30%). So how do you do that? By providing a bigger message -- a bigger story -- than just what you see in front of you. Suppose I wanted to write an article about a specific short line -- say, for instance, the Great Western. Well, the first question a reader is going to ask, is, "Why should I care? Prove to me I should care." So I have to look for a deeper meaning or message, and then I have to figure out how to tell that clearly. Then I can make what ostensibly seems to be a local story into a national story. I can appeal to the other 108,000 of the 110,000 readers who do not give two hoots about the GW. For instance: Maybe the Great Western set some pattern that everyone later followed, so, if you wanted to understand EVERY short line in the U.S., you should first understand the Great Western. Or, the problems the Great Western faces are typical of every short line everywhere and it serves as a lesson or example. The key is to look for the meaning. A good story has three elements: a question, a conflict, and a promise of insight. The question should be some fundamental aspect of railroading that every reader wants to understand (like, for example, why railroads can't recapture market share from trucks). The conflict is the stake-setter: it's why we care. It's railroads vs. trucks, or big railroads vs. small, or management vs. labor, etc. The conflict is the proof to the reader that this is IMPORTANT, by showing that people are risking lots of money, their way of life, their quality of life, etc., over it. The promise of insight is what you, the writer, is going to impart to the reader. It's the guarantee that if the reader gives the author just a few minutes of his life, he or she will learn something meaningful, important, and with the potential to change the way the reader thinks or does things beginning the next morning. A really good story will set out all three elements within the first few paragraphs. Not every story succeeds as well as we would like it to, but this is the goal. The alternative to this type of story is what I call "the encyclopedia entry." This is a type of story that really has no deep meaning to it; it's just a description of something. The Railroad Blueprint and Trackside Guide series are this type of story. The Railroad Blueprint is just supposed to be fun -- it's a cool railroad at a cool location at a cool point in time. That's why they're brief, descriptive, and heavily illustrated, because while 1800 words on the Frisco in Springfield is fine, 6000 words is more detail than almost anyone wants to know. (Sure, the Frisco fans would like that, but those same people are NOT going to like 6000 words for the next 24 months on the Pennsy, the NYC, etc., etc., and again, the point is that the magazine is supposed to appeal to all 110,000 readers all the time, not just a few diehards.) The Trackside Guide series are field guides, and not meant to be bedside reading or a good tale. Yes, they're useful, but not to change your life. Credentials are just something people use to open doors. They don't prove anything, however. I've seen lots of people with M.D. or Ph.D. behind their name who I'd trust with my life, and a lot with the same initials I wouldn't trust to know what to do with a spill on the floor. Experience is very important. It can be acquired: lots of authors (me included) may not know anything about a subject when they start. That's why you read, interview, ask questions, submit your draft to experts, revise, ask new questions, compare to other things, etc. But, like Clint Eastwood once said, "A man's gotta know his limitations." No one expects to be a starting pitcher for the Yankees on their first effort, and by the same token, no one should expect to be a writer for Time Magazine on their first effort either. Big-name writers get big names and big money because, just like a major-league pitcher, they have developed a talent that enables them to do things hardly anyone else can do. Trains is not the major league in writing, but we're Single A. Even the experts have to work at it. A Fred Frailey or Don Phillips spends a lot of time with me developing the story, discussing the story, and perfecting the story. They'll run it by experts and listen carefully to what they have to say. Their stories aren't isn't just born whole one day. For example, the engineer story in the December issue has over 100 e-mails and a dozen phone calls between me and the author behind it. That's pretty typical for a cover story. Experience matters in two areas: knowledge of railroads, and knowledge of writing. It's no good to know a lot about railroads if you can't communicate it clearly and succinctly, and it's no good to know how to write if you have nothing to say! I turn down many writers who have experience as a writer but from their proposal I perceive that they don't know anything about railroads and really don't want to learn. But if an author admits that and says, "I don't know very much about railroads, but I worked as a reporter for Time Magazine for 10 years and I think I can learn," well, I'm going to certainly write back. By the same token, if someone says, "I don't know much about writing, but I worked for the C&NW for 30 years in these positions at these locations, and this is the idea I want to get across," I'm going to write back to them, too. I figure the former I can help with the railroading, and the latter I can help with the writing, but trying to do both will generally be impossible. We all start with no experience and no credentials, and we acquire them through hard work. I didn't learn to be a dispatcher until I'd been miserable many a night, and my first article took me a year of writing and rewriting and asking questions. The learning curve is pretty steep in any craft at first, and it's usually not much fun, either. Aside from the semi-professional writers looking to make a quick buck (which we almost always turn down), the single thing that handicaps many of the people that propose articles to Trains is that they don't read very much. The single most important thing a writer does is read other people's work -- and articles in other magazines (big magazines) in other fields. That's how you learn how other people use quotes, organize thoughts, use examples to illustrate points, etc. I read a lot. Every night. It's my job. (Fortunately I like to do this.) I read about ocean shipping, naval history, trucking, coal mining, steel making, you name it, but not much about railroads 'cause I see that every day at work. I see a lot of ways that good writers do things, and I steal their good ideas. I see a lot of ways writers muddle things, and I learn by bad example, too. Good magazines are Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Business Week. National Geographic articles can be pretty odd, so I wouldn't look at them too closely. Read the stuff that appeals to you, not the stuff that doesn't, and look closely at how they do things. A lot of writers that pop up out of nowhere and turn out to be really good for us are people that have never been writers per se, but got a good education -- some cranky teacher forced them years ago to read books and write papers, and in the interim they read a lot and wrote reports and business letters, so they know how to compose their thoughts and get them onto paper. So where to start? I don't want to disappoint anyone, but at the same time, my responsibility is to 110,000 readers, since they pay the bills. I've got to please them first, and I can't do that with anything less than the best writing I can find for the price I'm able to pay. One thing I suggest to first-time writers is to do a Railroad Reading. These are first-person accounts, and not nearly so demanding of writing ability because they're like a conversation. Sometimes they turn into major articles, too.
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