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Back to Malcolm Gladwell: The Most Useful Hour You'll Ever Spend on Storytelling | How I Write, with Malcolm Gladwell.

What Would Malcolm Gladwell Teach First in a Writing Class?

Malcolm Gladwell would start a writing class by teaching students how to ask questions. Everything begins with knowing what a question is for, where it comes from, and what is interesting in the other person. The work is to be generous. The interview is about them, not the writer.

David Perell asked what Gladwell would teach in a semester on writing. Gladwell would send students home to interview their parents, record about 45 minutes, bring back a transcript, and turn that transcript into a short article. An article about someone is a version of the interview, with the blanks filled in. A 14-year-old freezes because they think the story has to come from them. Other people already have the stories. The job is to go find them.

The last class would seat a visitor who has a secret in the middle of the room. The class has to find the secret by asking questions. He would not tell them anything else.

Transcript

Malcolm Gladwell: The Most Useful Hour You'll Ever Spend on Storytelling | How I Write ·

How I Write

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  1. Why Does Writing Make Malcolm Gladwell Get Lost?Malcolm Gladwell gets lost when he stands up from deep writing because he uses the same part of his brain for writing that he uses to make sense of direction.
  2. Who Should Writers Interview for a Story?Malcolm Gladwell says writers should interview the person who can bring the most specificity to a topic. The most important person does not help.
  3. Why Does Day of the Jackal Read Like a How-to?Malcolm Gladwell says Day of the Jackal reads like a how-to, and he calls it the most important book of its genre.
  4. How Does Malcolm Gladwell Find the Story in His Research?Malcolm Gladwell finds the story by talking with no plan until one detail clicks.
  5. Why Does Malcolm Gladwell Give Readers a Framework?Malcolm Gladwell says writers who do his kind of writing have an obligation to give people tools to organize their experience.
  6. How Does Malcolm Gladwell Find the Moment a Story Turns on?Malcolm Gladwell finds the moment a story turns on by listening back to a long interview and building the piece around the line that turns one case into a…
  7. Does Malcolm Gladwell Regret Broken Windows?Malcolm Gladwell fell in love with broken windows in Tipping Point, and he has regretted that choice many times.

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