Thinking about Writing

Although people who participate in the IWW's Creative Nonfiction Discussion list might tire of my supposition, I think sports writing -- no, better said as writing about sports -- provides some of the best examples of the genre.

Why? I think because there sport provides real-life examples of the same dynamic that drives the best of fiction -- character, conflict, loss, and redemption.

A renowned political columnist touches on this issue in a column today printed in the Washington POST.

Charles Krauthammer's summation is this:

"Ronald Reagan, I was once told, said he liked The Natural except that he didn't understand why the Dark Lady shoots Roy Hobbs. Reagan, the preternatural optimist, may have had difficulty fathoming tragedy, but no one knows why Hobbs is shot. It is fate, destiny, nemesis. Perhaps the dawning of knowledge, the coming of sin. Or more prosaically, the catastrophe that awaits everyone from a single false move, wrong turn, fatal encounter. Every life has such a moment. What distinguishes us is whether -- and how -- we ever come back."

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Reading sports as literature and art ...

The Silent Season of a Hero by Gay Talese
Esquire, July 1966
The Hammer of God by Charles P. Pierce
Esquire, June 2001