Interview: Cara Hoffman

I have always written fiction or creative nonfiction in addition to reporting, and don’t feel it’s difficult making the transition from one form of writing to the other. I think this is a pretty common experience. Changing careers from reporter to novelist has been the traditional trajectory of writers for the last century; it’s only been in the past few decades that creative writing has been “professionalized” through the university system and the MFA. So, yes, the switch was very easy to make. The conventions of being a reporter helped me immensely as a fiction writer. Remaining deadline-driven and being focused on accuracy, patterns of speech, detail, and the economy of language became second nature to me as a reporter, and those skills have served me well as a fiction writer. Reporting is an excellent foundation. Working in a newsroom beats you down and gives you real-world writing and—maybe more importantly—real-world social skills. Reporting makes you skeptical, reveals how people’s lives are interesting and rich and serious, demands that you research before putting ink on the page, and exposes you to intense criticism. It also provides great discipline; you get work done while phones are ringing, the scanner is going off, and five or six people are talking right next to you. You have to write coherently and objectively about things that may be upsetting or distracting, and you can’t make excuses or you‘ll be fired. Essentially, reporting provides enormous insights and busts your chops at the same time, which is a great way to learn how to be a novelist.
-Cara Hoffman

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