The Elements of Story

The bulk of writing books address grammar, style, and other line-by-line topics. However, Francis Flaherty believes that complex story-level matters—how to make a story move and how to use description to buttress your theme—pose equally common and far more formidable problems for writing students.

Drawn from Flaherty’s long experience at the New York Times, this book shows how Times articles read the way they do. “Sometimes, say things sideways,” Flaherty writes. “The reader will be grateful.” “White is whitest on black,” he observes. “Let contrast work for you.” Through these and other hard-won story-level insights, sprinkled with examples from real stories and leavened with a good dose of newsroom memoir, The Elements of Story fills a large gap in the long shelf of writing books.