Josh Wallaert’s Best Tips For Quotes
On March 13th Josh Wallaert, a newspaper editor, came into our class to give us tips for being a journalist.
Before we talk about the tips, here’s the low down on Josh Wallaert. He lives in San Francisco and is an alumni of the University of Minnesota with a Masters in Fine Arts. He is a senior editor at the Places Journal. His fictional writing has appeared in famous reviews such as Black Warrior Review and Southern Review. He is also the co director of the 2007 documentary, Arid Lands that he created in his 20’s.
Here are the tips:
When you write down your interview with someone for a quote, always say “said or says” so that people can focus on the quote rather than the fancy way of saying it (generic is better).
When you interview someone and they don’t give you the quote you're looking for, use a journalist technique called the “echo” tactic. The echo technique is when you repeat the last words they said. Most of the time this will get your golden quote because it makes them keep talking.
The next tip is to pick the right quote. When interviewing someone you will get many different quotes so choosing the right one is crucial to make the piece of writing as captivating and compelling as possible. First make the quote as short and sweet as possible to get to the heart of the quote, that is the juicy part. Secondly, put the quote in the right place. If the place you put the quote in is by something totally unrelated to your quote it won’t come off as strong and will lose the entire value gained from a quote, so when placing your quote make sure it is in a place that benefits your writing.
The last crucial tip that Josh gave us is to always be interviewing. First you have to tell them you’re recording, this is the law. You should always prepare way more questions than you will actually ask. And finally once you are done, hook all the quotes together and you might get your golden quote that you’re looking for.
