Lillian Ross: A Way of Writing

By Jeremy St. Clair 

The Lillian Ross essay was an interesting article. It gives the view of how a magazine writer approaches writing articles. Lillian Ross thinks of it as creating a short story. I do see how that’s the case since its taking some information and telling a story to people. She feels that it is more difficult than fiction because news articles are based on facts. She believes not to speculate on what people think, only write about ideas she knows are true. 

She has come up with certain guidelines for writing. She respects only writing about a person if they want her to. And she chooses to write about events and people that interest her or stuff she likes.   She decides also to take notes when doing this. When writing an article she want to be clear and straightforward.  The reason is, she said, you can’t be ambiguous in writing an article people will read. An article needs to be straightforward so the person can understand it. 

She also feels it’s good to take notes on a notepad. She tries to listen and write and if she can’t do both she just listens. This way she understand the meaning and context of what is being said.  For her also it is better to write and take notes than record.  She views a tape recorder as a lazy way of getting people to talk and feels it’s unrealistic and lifeless. She wants to listen to what people are saying and not have the recorder do it for her. Different reporters have different ways of writing articles and this shows how Lillian approaches writing.