Tricks of the trade: GW journalists on how to master longform writing

It’s been said that in longform journalism, there are no shortcuts.

To start, there’s the difficulty in gaining access to high-profile subjects, then managing the public relations operatives keen to control any interaction. Next comes the balancing act between reporting and writing: between calling as many as 60 sources for a single story, then shaping that trove of raw material into 5000 words that command attention.

It’s a specialist craft, and in the final episode of Good Weekend Talks for 2022, Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland hosts a discussion with senior writers Jane Cadzow and Amanda Hooton. As veterans of the magazine, Cadzow and Hooton have mastered the process, developing that all-important nose for the story, eye for detail and ear for a quote.

For Cadzow, that shone through this year with a trio of stunning profiles, on golf icon and disruptor Greg Norman, mining and energy giant Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, and the Melbourne academic who was jailed in Iran, Kylie Moore-Gilbert. In each piece, Cadzow was required to paint a portrait not solely in black or white but shades of grey – something that would reflect the complexity of each human, and perhaps tell us something about ourselves, or our world.

Choosing the subject, notes Cadzow, is half the battle. “‘Worthy but dull’ is death,” she says. “You want somebody [with] something about them that is out of the box or unusual or intriguing in some way. A little tinge of craziness helps.”

Hooton can relate, having this year profiled meticulous Michelin-star chef Clare Smyth and brilliant plastic surgeon Fiona Wood. But one of her most widely-read pieces was a more general feature on the GP crisis enveloping the Australian medical community, which required the now-familiar task of quickly becoming an expert in a field she knew little to nothing about.

“I often think of writing a feature as a kind of knowledge-gathering experience, for both the writer and the reader,” Hooton says. “Part of the way you pull a person through the story is by that journey of discovery.”

Only once the material or the individual is understood, does the tyranny of the quiet keyboard and the blank screen arise. “You have to plot a way through,” says Hooton. “I sometimes get to the end of a paragraph and feel like I’ve climbed a mountain. And then I have to start all over again and climb another mountain.”

Cadzow agrees: “Every single time, it makes my brain exhausted,” she says, “but it does get finally to a point when you’re three-quarters of the way through, and you realise, this story is going to get written after all!”

In the world of journalism – perhaps too often dominated by 30-second soundbites and news told in the short-form “inverted pyramid” method of storytelling – writing in longform for a living is, of course, a privilege. “A news story is about who, what, when, where, why; a feature story is about entertaining people as well as informing them,” says Cadzow. “I just love the luxury of being able to give a subject the time, depth and nuance.”

Good Weekend Talks offers readers the chance to dive deep into the definitive stories of the day, through weekly conversations with an array of special guests. Listen to more episodes by subscribing to Good Weekend Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.