At any rate, that first month, January of 1965, I go in there and we’re having this conversation—Oh no, that’s not for us. Again and again. And then finally I said, Well I have another idea. It’s a piece about oranges. That’s all I said—oranges. I didn’t mention juice, I didn’t mention trees, I didn’t mention the tropics. Just—oranges.
Oh yes! Oh yes! he says. That’s very good. The next thing I knew I was in Florida talking to orange growers.
- John McPhee on the gorgeous vagaries of pitching stories to William Shawn.
The same Paris Review interview has this one about Shawn, too:
… I thought, God help me, I would love to go there. And so I go to Shawn and ask him if I can go to Alaska. Oh no, he said, that’s not for us.
I discovered later that the reason it was not for us was because it’s cold there. It wasn’t reserved for another writer in a general way, it was reserved for no writer in a specific way, because it’s cold there. He didn’t want to read about cold places. Another time I tried to get him to agree that I write about Newfoundland. And he said, right back, Is it cold there?
I’ve read this interview at least twice. If you care about turning facts into true stories, you should go read it. I mean, look at this:
With nonfiction, you’ve got your material, and what you’re trying to do is tell it as a story in a way that doesn’t violate fact, but at the same time is structured and presented in a way that makes it interesting to read.
I always say to my classes that it’s analogous to cooking a dinner. You go to the store and you buy a lot of things. You bring them home and you put them on the kitchen counter, and that’s what you’re going to make your dinner out of. If you’ve got a red pepper over here—it’s not a tomato. You’ve got to deal with what you’ve got.
I’d quote the part about the first time McPhee tangoed on Mars, but all I’ve got is this red pepper.
