"The confidence in a piece is directly related to the depth of the reporting behind it. Susan Orlean last year at the conference said that she doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as writer’s block. When you’re having writer’s block it’s because you haven’t done enough work or reporting to have the thinking that you need to do the writing. So she goes back to the reporting as the cornerstone. And I think that the pieces that just feel confident are full of what Mark Kramer calls “muscular movement,” as if the writer is in total command of the material. That comes in having reported the piece so well that you know the material, and you know how to work with it. And that comes through in even a single sentence. The reporting is so solid in a piece when you start not mistrusting the author. You start forgetting that it’s even being written, and you’re just lost in the story. I think that has a lot to do with the reporting and the confidence."
(Source: niemanstoryboard.org)
