Scope and Spice

Every now and then we put out a booklet for our staff called “Give & Take.”

It’s a collection of insider questions and answers about their shared line of work. The questions range from “How do you overcome writer’s block” to “Which books helped you hone your craft” to “How do you build a good lead” to “Do you edit as you work or wait until you’re done” to “Who do you trust to review your work before publication.”

One of the questions that kept appearing in different permutations is a question we all struggle with: What is the “secret sauce” that makes a successful piece?

Every writer has his or her own answer to that question. Master editor and writer Rabbi Moshe Grylak used to tell us about a financial columnist whose work shone because he always made it about the reader. “When he reported price fluctuations in the agricultural sector,” he’d say, “he made it real for the average housewife — he wrote about the changing prices of tomatoes in the makolet.”