Post #5. How Do I Want to Be Like Bill O'Reilly?

December 25, 2012 – Merry Christmas!

First, A Spot of History: In August 1914, as German soldiers sweep through Belgium on their way to France, they steal much of the wine held in private wine cellars. Some Belgians build false walls to hide their stock, but these are usually discovered.

One quick-witted baron orders his servants to throw all his wine into the ornamental lake in front of his chateau and jokes that besides being safe from the Germans, the wine will stay at the proper temperature.

The next morning, with the Germans nearly at his door, the baron wakes up to find all the wine labels have floated to the top of the lake!

The baron freaks out and orders his servants into the lake. Stripping off their fine embroidered livery, the most junior of the staff dive into the scummy waters and grimly go about gathering up the labels. 

Happily, during the following four years of war, the Germans never find the wine in the lake. After the war, the baron’s parties become famous for their imaginative use of unknown wines.

[Sadly, this story is not all true. See Post #10 to learn the story.]
 

Now to My Post:  So, how do I want to be like Bill O’Reilly?

Well, as any of my friends and family will tell you, it’s certainly not to emulate his political views!

It’s to follow in his footsteps as a successful nonfiction author.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I read a piece by Leslie Kaufman in the New York Times, about how O’Reilly has somehow found the right mix of fact and writing style to create two separate million-seller books: “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy” that now sit 1 and 2 on the NYTimes Best Seller list.

Think about it: These are two of the most famous assassinations in U.S. history and have been written about more often than probably any others. When it comes to the sheer volume of articles and books produced from these topics, they have to be the most over done and over covered in historical writings – kind of like Taylor Swift and Paris Hilton in the entertainment world.

And yet, O’Reilly has somehow fashioned two best-selling books that are both history books and fast-paced page-turners.

That’s what I want to do with the CRB.

But how?

In classes that I’ve taught, I’ve said that creative writing courses have been around for only 150 years, and yet great writing has been produced since the dawn of written language.

Why is that?

To me, it’s all about critical reading. Countless want-to-be writers have become good writers by studying why some pieces of writing speak to all of us – making us laugh, cry or think – while others suck big time and are only good for wrapping fish.

Writers – to be good writers – have to understand what makes great writing great and bad writing bad, so they can do more of one and less of the other. Simple and straightforward, and yet surprisingly difficult to execute.

While I promise (threaten? :) to pontificate in other Posts about what makes great writing, for now I’ll just say that I’ve asked Susan (my charming wife of 29 years) for only one present on my 60^th Birthday (Dec. 27, 2012) – a copy of O’Reilly’s Killing Lincoln.

I intend to read it first for the pure joy of reading. Then I intend to reread it and tear it apart. The only way I’m going to learn how he did what he did is to shred it into little pieces. From that dissection, I hope to gain some insight into how I might be able to create the same Best Seller “Magic” that O’Reilly has achieved.

Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve thought of emulating someone by analyzing his or her book. Over the years, I’ve built up quite a collection of magnificent historical narratives that I would love to copy. I will be re-reading them in coming months to help me create my CRB book.

For anyone’s who interested, here are the books I've found to be truly spectacular history-book reads.

1.      Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand

2.      King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild

3.      Devil in the White City by Eric Larson (although ultimately disappointing in the ending)

I would love to hear any suggestions of other great nonfiction historical narratives that you think I should read.