For successful writers, Habit 5 of Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a given: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." Writers report on what they witness. They listen. They ask questions. They seek the essence of a subject, the heart of a character.
The proverb "He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever" is a foregone conclusion for writers. They do not fear asking the tough question of their subjects and, more important, of themselves. Edward T. Hall dedicated his life to asking what makes one culture different from another, and he comes up with remarkable answers in the books Beyond Culture, The Hidden Dimension, and The Silent Language. Rebecca D. Costa's The Watchman's Rattle identifies trends driving our global culture by asking the difficult questions concerning our mores. Barack H. Obama's Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope also ask challenging personal and political questions, respectively, and Obama tries to answer them cogently.
Starting out with the toughest question and striving to answer it through interviews, research, and free-writing may not resolve the matter at hand, but it will make for interesting reading.
The proverb "He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever" is a foregone conclusion for writers. They do not fear asking the tough question of their subjects and, more important, of themselves. Edward T. Hall dedicated his life to asking what makes one culture different from another, and he comes up with remarkable answers in the books Beyond Culture, The Hidden Dimension, and The Silent Language. Rebecca D. Costa's The Watchman's Rattle identifies trends driving our global culture by asking the difficult questions concerning our mores. Barack H. Obama's Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope also ask challenging personal and political questions, respectively, and Obama tries to answer them cogently.
Starting out with the toughest question and striving to answer it through interviews, research, and free-writing may not resolve the matter at hand, but it will make for interesting reading.
