What The Best Stories Are About

Been thinking a lot about something Wright said in his interview with me earlier this week. It actually helped me shape a story idea into something I felt like I could sell my editor. 

The best stories are universal. There’s a great Steinbeck quote, I’m gonna find the book because it’s too good a quote and I don’t want to mess it up. 

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Let’s see. Here it is. This is from East of Eden: “If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and lasting story is about everyone, or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting—only the deeply personal and familiar.”

So many people do a story about the one-legged goalie ... but that’s the total wrong way. You don’t look for the abnormal. You look for the universal. At least I do.

Can Urban Meyer Really Make It Home For Dinner? Wright Thompson On Profiling The Man Who Can't Quit Coaching

"Keeping up with Urban Meyer is more of an Olympic event than handball."

— Wright Thompson

ESPN The Magazine/ESPN.com senior writer Wright Thompson put together a fantastic profile of Urban Meyer over the summer. It went live at ESPN.com yesterday and is in The Mag's college football preview issue, on newsstands now. 

Link: Urban Meyer Will Be Home For Dinner.

It's one of those stories that everyone can appreciate, a story about a man of enormous notoriety in his field who also deals with one of the most simple, most universal conflicts known to humanity. From a football fan's perspective, it's an incredible look at one of the most prolific coaches of our time. And from a storyteller's perspective, from a journalist's perspective, it's the type of story I think we'd do well to aspire to—it is bold, it is intimate, and it is remarkably truthful, not only about Urban Meyer, but about what it means to be human. 

(Image is from when Wright won a Sports Emmy, and yeah, I cribbed it from BallStateSports.com.)

Wright was kind enough to spend an hour on the phone with me this week to talk about the story and other aspects of his journalism career. Whether you're an ambitious young guy like me or a seasoned vet or anywhere in between, seems like there's something in here for everyone. The italics are my questions. Everything else is Wright.

Enjoy. 

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The Grind

The last couple weeks, I've been looking for my next story idea for ESPN The Magazine. It's been a tough, frustrating stretch. 

I'm not complaining. Life is awesome. I'm just writing this to share some struggles I think lots of writers face, journalists in particular. 

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Stories' Stories: SI's Tommy Tomlinson On His Harvey Updyke Story "Something Went Very Wrong At Toomer's Corner"

This originally appeared at my other blog, HeyGoodCall.com.

Writer Tommy Tomlinson took way more time than he should have to answer the way too many questions I asked him about his recent story in Sports Illustrated about Harvey Updyke, the Alabama fan who poisoned the iconic oaks at Auburn’s Toomer’s Corner. 

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