Craft Notes: “Introduction” by Ira Glass from "The New Kings of Nonfiction"

a.      Telling: “I don’t see anything wrong with a piece of reporting turning into a fable.” “They either find a new angle on something we all know about already, or—more often—they take on subjects that nobody else has figured out are worthy of reporting.” “I think you’ve really only got two basic building blocks. You’ve got the plot of the story, and you’ve got the ideas the plot is driving at.”

b.      Images: photocopies of photocopies, piles of old stories. “Random issues of a Canadian magazine a friend edited for a while.” “You can knock your head against a wall for days,”

c.       Tone: Very informal and friendly. Cusses, informal vocabulary, talks to us like we’re talking over coffee. “trying his damndest.” “I say Phooey to that. This book says phooey to that.” “trots”, “hokum”, “this passage just kills me,” to introduce a quoted text. “I think it’s for losers.” Very comedic and entertaining. Tells us how she feels.

d.      Structure: Her opinion and images, a passage from a story, “telling” the importance of the passage or of that person. Stars to separate sections of more specific focus.

e.      Questions: Are all the passages from the intro later in the book? I hope so. Also, What would Ira consider a line between news features and larger non-fiction stories, if there even is one?