Last year, the celebrated New Yorker writer David Grann spoke with Nieman Storyboard about his book, The Wager. The interviewer asked Grann how he manages to keep coming across the kind of stories that most writers would dream of finding, even once in their lives.
Here’s how Grann responded:
“Coming up with the right idea is the hardest part. First, you try to find a story that grips you and has subjects that are fascinating. Then, you ask: Are there underlying materials to tell that story?… The third level of interrogation is: Does the story have another dimension, richer themes, or trap doors that lead you places?”
He later adds:
“I spend a preliminary period ruthlessly interrogating ideas as I come across them, even though it’s time-consuming and a bit frustrating. I don’t want to wake up two years into a book project saying, ‘This isn’t going anywhere.’”
These quotes caught my attention because their relevance extends beyond the craft of writing and to the broader concern of cultivating depth in a world increasingly mired in digitally-enhanced shallowness.
In life, the types of deep projects that free us from these shallows–whether by transforming our career into something remarkable or making our personal lives richer–require a massive investment of time and effort. This includes:
- Diligence – the willingness to stick with the pursuit for months or even years; and
- Deliberateness – the willingness to do the specific types of activities that actually matter for making progress, even if they’re hard, and there are other activities you’d rather do instead.
Given these demands, it’s common to either lose interest in these projects once they get going or to be so intimidated by the path ahead that you never get started in the first place.
Grann’s advice helps with both issues. By raising the bar for considering a deep project–relentlessly examining, researching, and studying the reality of a pursuit before finally deeming it worthy–you’ll naturally end up giving serious consideration to fewer ideas. And those that do make it through this gauntlet will be so compelling that you’re much more likely to get started and stick with them.
This pre-commitment vetting is often a missing piece when discussing grand goals. Online “hustle culture” voices often emphasize activity for its own sake: Get started! Delay is for the weak! Craftsmen like Grann, on the other hand, understand that fundamental to the art of deep accomplishment is the patient search for the right subject.
We do have goals in mind, then it’s all about laying down the right steps to get to that goal. We have ideas about the steps then we have to test them in the real world, and this is where the difference between what we had in mind and what is comes up. Additional steps come up, we make detours. I think we all have to go through that, like David Grann. Whether we give up our goals (sometimes for the right reasons!) or whether we stick to them is a matter of either persistence or just plain feasibility or lack of money / resources. The hustle culture certainly emphasises fast results, but the real world gives us a great reality check, that anybody understands sooner or later.
Good post. Reminds me of a quote from (I believe) Michael Lewis, another great storyteller who always seems to be in the right place at the right time: “Some people waste years not being willing to waste hours.”
It’s like picking a job or a partner. The discomfort of not having one can lead you to jump at the first offer even if you end up on the wrong path many months or years later. The same is true with projects, and with too much noise/hustle, it’s hard to hear and trust your intuition