Smash Notes

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

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. The book stays on the logistics of how the jackal plots and carries out an assassination. As far as he understands, no one had done that before. It is not a how-to, but it is close.

The book takes pleasure in the details: the weapon, how to take it apart and put it back together, then a minute-by-minute account of the man moving across Paris, France. The genius is that logistical lens. Lee Child is the king of specificity. The same standard shows up when a fight is written so the reader begins to believe it is possible for someone who knows what they are doing. A television show gives the cartoon version and never explains the fight, and the audience knows it is a trick.

Grokipedia·Jackal·Malcolm Gladwell

Transcript

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

How I Write

More from this episode

  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. How Does Malcolm Gladwell Find the Story in His Research?Malcolm Gladwell finds the story by talking with no plan until one detail clicks.
  4. 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.
  5. 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…
  6. 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.
  7. What Would Malcolm Gladwell Teach First in a Writing Class?Malcolm Gladwell would start a writing class by teaching students how to ask questions.

People

More answers like this

More with Malcolm Gladwell

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.