Finding the Story: From Journalist to Author—A Not-So-Obvious Path

If there’s one thing a seasoned reporter knows, it’s how to find a great story. The Novelry graduate Emma Nanami Strenner has done just that with her stunning debut novel, now being published by Penguin—My Other Heart is a sweeping and heartfelt story about finding your roots across borders and beyond blood ties.

A journalist with more than 20 years’ experience, Emma took The Ninety Day Novel and The Big Edit at The Novelry to write her first novel, then signed a publishing contract with Pamela Dorman Books in the U.S. and Hutchinson Heinemann in the U.K., both imprints of Penguin Random House.

In this article, Emma shares the similarities and differences a journalist and author share when it comes to finding a story and pitching it, the benefits of timelines and deadlines, and the joy that comes from developing an idea beyond a limited word count. Emma’s journey makes it clear that while not all writing careers are identical, the desire of any writer to tell a story that hooks the reader is the same.

After 20 years of working as a journalist and section editor for consumer magazines and some newspapers, I still dabble in a bit of journalism, writing features, articles and reviews of things. Some old habits die hard. I’m still incapable of getting started on a piece until the very last possible moment, and I often find myself in a mild panic as I rush to get the words out and meet the deadlines.

Is it an occupational hazard? My inability to organise my time effectively? Is it just how I like to write? Possibly all of the above.

But what is it that allows for the skillset of journalism to translate to writing fiction?

It’s not as simple as it might seem, although it is all the business of words. It is the nose for a story. To find something worth telling. And the ability to decipher what deserves space and what doesn’t, that I think provides the continuum between journalism and writing a novel.

Journalist/author: the best of both worlds

My favourite kind of feature or commission was usually when there was a story to write from a person’s point of view. Either told to me, or I would write it in first person. Which was definitely the obvious clue that I wanted to tell stories. Not report, necessarily, but tell stories.

And in any opportunity I could find, I would always cram in a literary reference. I remember my editors at Stylist magazine were always laughing. ‘Oh, here we go again, another literary reference...’ But why wouldn’t you? The link is so clear, and I loved the possibilities of contextualising something with a cultural or artistic reference that really reflected what I was trying to say. But sometimes talking about the latest fitness trend didn’t always feel like an obvious fit with a quote from The Great Gatsby.

And while it might seem an obvious transition to fiction writing, the path is not quite so clear-cut. When you’re writing articles, you have a rigid word count, and you need to keep the story succinct. You have a very limited amount of space to capture your reader and get across your message. And sometimes this doesn’t even allow for a literary reference! Being succinct is an invaluable skill to have in writing for newspapers and magazines, because space is limited. But it also means you have to be utterly crystal clear on what you want to say, and I think this is the part that comes in very useful later in novel writing, during the editing phase.

It is all the business of words. It is the nose for a story. To find something worth telling. And the ability to decipher what deserves space and what doesn’t, that I think provides the continuum between journalism and writing a novel.
—Emma Nanami Strenner

There’s a story there...

When I was a section editor, aside from the writing, the editing, the launches and the advertiser meetings, I was also tasked with suggesting cover lines to my editor every month. This was a line that would grab potential readers to pick up the magazine and buy it. You know the kind I mean – ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ – that type of thing. Only, it was always related to wellness and beauty, and sometimes features too.

This was a great exercise, because every story that was pitched, and commissioned, had to have a potential cover line – the very essence of the story you want to tell. The thing that makes it stand out and makes the reader want to read on.

One of the first things you do when you come up with the concept for your novel is figure out the conflict, and this is the cover line of your story. Your quickfire elevator pitch. And I think having the journalism mindset, where you really have to nail down the exact story you’re pitching, helped me come up with this.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an easy exercise. I found it incredibly hard to come up with cover line suggestions every month or week. But every department had to, and it was such an invaluable exercise. Having to work around the stories to get to the crunch of them, and what made them intriguing and interesting, helped me to nail this concept when it came to finding my own elevator pitch for my novel. Everything came back to these two lines (of course, you get more lines for a full novel) – and it helped to steer me along the way.

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Interesting people

One of the greatest things I experienced when I was working in magazines was speaking to incredible experts. I would speak to R&D experts who were concocting the latest breakthrough in skincare technology, I would speak to esoteric noses from the greatest perfume house in Paris, and wellness experts who pioneered transformative experiences for body and mind.

One woman, in particular, I remember meeting her in West London in her home for a yoga practice that was in fact also combined with meditative healing. She was an extraordinary person, and everything about her felt wise and accepting. She left such a profound impression on me. And I think that it’s through meeting these amazing people when you’re writing a story that you start to pick up on their characteristics, and paint a picture of a person in the article. And then they say something interesting, something worth quoting, and you have the expert’s voice running through the piece. Their presence is there.

I think the great liberation that you have in writing a novel is its length, for one thing, but also allowing your characters to really develop. So instead of having a snippet with an expert where they give you little golden nuggets in quotes that are vital to credibility and the informative nature of your piece, instead, you have these three-dimensional, fully formed characters that grow and grow. And eventually take on a mind of their own.

This has to be the most wonderful part of writing fiction. When you are in the flow of writing and a character decides to do what they want to do, regardless of what you might have planned in your intricate notes. They are a free and living being.

Interesting people doing interesting things: this, for me, is the foundation of a story. In fact, so many people I’ve met and interactions I’ve had have found their way into My Other Heart. Most of the people who said the words probably wouldn’t know that it was them I was quoting, but so much of the world I created was inspired by real moments I shared with real people, and often through the amazing people I met in my career as a journalist.

Interesting people doing interesting things: this, for me, is the foundation of a story.
—Emma Nanami Strenner

Word counts

With limited space, you have limited word counts. For a hefty piece, I would usually be asked for 1,500 words. 2,000 at most.

My process was always to structure and write it all out (it would usually end up being double the intended length) – and then cut, cut, cut. This has always worked for me.

When it comes to building up a novel, especially in first-draft phase, I found the same process worked. I just wrote and wrote, the tailoring would come later. But I had to hit certain word counts every day. Even if lots of it ended up in the bin.

And now, in my second book, I work to a pretty rigid schedule every morning and update my Excel spreadsheet. I have a target for the word count – right now it’s 100,000 total. Though I’ve learned in the editing process of My Other Heart that nothing is written in stone. And then I endeavour to write 1,000 words a day. Sometimes it’s less. Sometimes it’s much, much more. But the point is, the number keeps ticking away and I have something hefty at the end of all this. Even if most of it might have to be deconstructed and then reconstructed.

The numbers matter – because it gives you structure and something to work towards, especially in terms of ‘not working into the void’.

I endeavour to write 1,000 words a day. Sometimes it’s less. Sometimes it’s much, much more. But the point is, the number keeps ticking away and I have something hefty at the end of all this. Even if most of it might have to be deconstructed and then reconstructed. The numbers matter – because it gives you structure and something to work towards, especially in terms of ‘not working into the void’.
—Emma Nanami Strenner

The edit

In theory, working to deadlines and submitting your work to an editor means you become used to receiving feedback. That your skin grows thicker and you’re able to handle the changes without getting precious about your work. In theory...

But I think there are some fundamentals here that do stick. I expect feedback, I expect changes and cuts. But I think this is probably quite subjective, and even when I used to submit articles, I would get an existential dread that the work was terrible and furtively look up constantly to my deputy editor and editor’s desks to see if they were reading and approving the work. In terms of validation as a writer, the buzz is brief and not particularly reassuring when you’re working on a magazine story. In fact, the validation comes from keeping your job and being asked to write more. And the same applies in the freelance capacity. The more I did it, the easier it became. I can only hope the same will apply to writing novels.

So when my novel went out for editing, I was entirely prepared for the notes and the suggestions. I was lucky, generally, that there were no major structural changes and that the plot remained untouched. Mostly, I found the notes a cathartic and reassuring part of the work. I could see that with every round of edits and changes it was getting better. And there is nothing better for a piece of work than a fresh pair of eyes, even if sometimes they’re also your eyes, who have not looked upon the text for some time.

I was used to people critiquing the work and looking to make the text better. Toni Morrison said:

A good editor is really a third eye. Cool. Dispassionate. They don’t love you or your work.
—Toni Morrison

While my experience hasn’t been quite as detached as this, I have worked on my manuscript with wonderful editors who give the characters and story so much love and care. I do believe the idea of ‘the third eye’ is absolutely true. And for me, it was such a crucial part of the process. To have someone in the industry take the work and comb through it, to work on it and carve away at it further.

Timelines in fiction writing

I have found that writing a novel gave me such a liberating sense of freedom. I could write for as long as I wanted and pursue all the threads that came to me. The creativity and vast expanse of where I could take my writing were endless, in a way. But it also required a completely different kind of focus. Articles are finite. They require a journalist’s attention for a brief moment in time while they research, interview, structure, and then write and submit. This can happen in as short a time as a week or a day.

Meanwhile, a novel can take years. My Other Heart took 18 months to write before I submitted it out to agents, and this included about four or five rounds of drafts that I looked at alone and perhaps shared in their entirety with one other person. You cannot just put the characters and plot away in a drawer. Then you have to be prepared for what comes next, because that also involves edits and changes. You’re still with the same people you created on the page. Unlike articles, which have a lifespan when they come out until the next day, week or month’s issue takes over.

Then after that, when you’ve put it all to bed and think the work with them is done for a bit and you can take a break from your protagonists, the publication date comes and you speak to readers, other writers, journalists, and influencers about the characters you have created.

Writing a novel gave me such a liberating sense of freedom. I could write for as long as I wanted and pursue all the threads that came to me. The creativity and vast expanse of where I could take my writing were endless, in a way.
—Emma Nanami Strenner

The emotional connection with your creation is different. The characters who were born upon my pages are living, breathing people to me now. I had an interview the other day with an American journalist who told me she graduated in the same year as my two main characters, in 2015. And I suddenly pictured Kit and Sabrina like her, in their offices, working jobs. And there was something really magical in that – that the girls, to me, were absolutely real and living beyond the pages, too.

10 authors who were also journalists

1. The Great Joan Didion!
2. Robert Harris
3. Ernest Hemingway
4. Charles Dickens
5. Dolly Alderton
6. Elizabeth Day
7. Carl Hiaasen
8. Michael Frayn
9. Graham Greene
10. Agatha Christie

My Other Heart by Emma Nanami Strenner

In June 1998, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport.

Seventeen years later, two best friends in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, discuss their summer plans before college. Kit, with the support of her white adoptive parents, will travel to Tokyo to explore her Japanese roots. This dizzying adventure offers her a taste of first love and a new understanding of what it means to belong.

Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment subsides, however, when she meets a bold, uncompromising new mentor who prompts Sabrina to ask questions she’s avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead in her search for her daughter.

When Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are, in this tremendously moving novel that is propelled to its astonishing climax in a way you will never forget. 

Find out more about Emma at her website, and be sure to preorder My Other Heart in the U.S.A. and in the U.K.!

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