EOTO II Reaction: From Newsprint to Novels
Before they became literary giants, they were reporters – chasing deadlines, interviewing sources, and distilling messy realities into crisp, potent prose. Journalism, with its demands for precision, clarity, and truth, provided the perfect training ground for some of the world’s most revered novelists. It taught them how to see the world — not as they wished it to be, but as it was. Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Joan Didion didn’t leave journalism behind when they turned to books. They carried it with them, shaping fiction that still feels urgent today.
Charles Dickens was just a teenager when he first hit the streets of London as a journalist. Working as a parliamentary sketch writer and court reporter for the Morning Chronicle, Dickens quickly learned the craft of transforming everyday misery into page-turning drama. As a novelist, Dickens' portrayal of Victorian England, its poor living conditions and inhumane workplaces, were a mirror to reality. My personal favorite is "Great Expectations", where Dickens applies a detached, almost cynical eye to both the extravagances of wealth and the indignities of poverty.
His experience as a reporter also taught him a practical skill that defined his literary career, known as periodical journalism. Dickens' early novels like the "Pickwick Papers", "Oliver Twist" and "Nicholas Nickleby" appeared in serialized monthly installments, forcing him to keep a relentless focus on character development and social critique. His writing, even at its most imaginative, didn’t simply tell stories; they bore witness.
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| Charles Dickens (1812-1870) |
Charles Dickens was just a teenager when he first hit the streets of London as a journalist. Working as a parliamentary sketch writer and court reporter for the Morning Chronicle, Dickens quickly learned the craft of transforming everyday misery into page-turning drama. As a novelist, Dickens' portrayal of Victorian England, its poor living conditions and inhumane workplaces, were a mirror to reality. My personal favorite is "Great Expectations", where Dickens applies a detached, almost cynical eye to both the extravagances of wealth and the indignities of poverty.
His experience as a reporter also taught him a practical skill that defined his literary career, known as periodical journalism. Dickens' early novels like the "Pickwick Papers", "Oliver Twist" and "Nicholas Nickleby" appeared in serialized monthly installments, forcing him to keep a relentless focus on character development and social critique. His writing, even at its most imaginative, didn’t simply tell stories; they bore witness.
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Life Magazine Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) |
Whilst Charles Dickens wrote long-winded prose, Ernest Hemingway believed that, “A writer’s style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous”. As a reporter at the Kansas City Star, he was taught the rules: short sentences, strong verbs and plain words. Tell the truth. Leave out the fluff. As a young man, he went to Europe as a war reporter. Men dead in muddy fields. Mutilations. Bombs. War.
Journalism demanded that Hemingway write quickly, clearly and truthfully, qualities that translated into his work as a novelist. His fiction carried the same economy of language, the same stripped-down urgency that left no room for pretension. Life was brutal, fragile, and fleeting– and he wrote it exactly that way, with nothing wasted and nothing softened.
Joan Didion, too, understood the power of precision. Beginning her career at Vogue and later moving to Time Magazine, Didion brought an almost surgical clarity to everything she wrote. But where Hemingway carved meaning from the violence of war, she found hers in the quieter devastations of American life– the fragmentation of families, the disillusionment of California dreamers, the aching loneliness hidden beneath sunlit surfaces.
Journalism trained her to observe with a cool, unflinching eye, capturing cultural upheaval not through sweeping upheavals but through the small details: a misty swimming pool, a cracked pair of sunglasses, a child’s forgotten toy.
When she transitioned into novel writing with books like “Play as it Lays” and “A Book of Common Prayer” (my mom’s favorite), Didion’s fiction retained that same spare, piercing quality. She quietly captured the slow unravelling of lives and ideals with a voice so distinct it became synonymous with a generation’s disillusionment.
Journalism sharpens the ability to observe without pretense, to strip away the jargon, to find meaning in both the grand and the minute— the very skills that breathe life into fiction.
Dickens, Hemingway, and Didion didn’t abandon their journalistic roots when they became novelists; they expanded them, transforming the raw facts of reality into stories that endure.
Perhaps, one day, I will follow in their paths.
Journalism demanded that Hemingway write quickly, clearly and truthfully, qualities that translated into his work as a novelist. His fiction carried the same economy of language, the same stripped-down urgency that left no room for pretension. Life was brutal, fragile, and fleeting– and he wrote it exactly that way, with nothing wasted and nothing softened.
Joan Didion, too, understood the power of precision. Beginning her career at Vogue and later moving to Time Magazine, Didion brought an almost surgical clarity to everything she wrote. But where Hemingway carved meaning from the violence of war, she found hers in the quieter devastations of American life– the fragmentation of families, the disillusionment of California dreamers, the aching loneliness hidden beneath sunlit surfaces.
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Julian Wasser Joan Didion at home in Hollywood (1970) |
When she transitioned into novel writing with books like “Play as it Lays” and “A Book of Common Prayer” (my mom’s favorite), Didion’s fiction retained that same spare, piercing quality. She quietly captured the slow unravelling of lives and ideals with a voice so distinct it became synonymous with a generation’s disillusionment.
Journalism sharpens the ability to observe without pretense, to strip away the jargon, to find meaning in both the grand and the minute— the very skills that breathe life into fiction.
Dickens, Hemingway, and Didion didn’t abandon their journalistic roots when they became novelists; they expanded them, transforming the raw facts of reality into stories that endure.
Perhaps, one day, I will follow in their paths.
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