Chris Jones on "Animals," his Zanesville Zoo massacre story

Some of the best insights into the major leagues are these types of scenarios. (See also New Yorker vs. Outside in profiling ski mountaineer Andrew McLean a couple few years ago. (Win = New Yorker.) This story also opened a deciphering window into how editorial staffs bolster writers, too.) While I liked both Zoo stories, neither struck me as A-grade. Great detail about chewing tobacco, but this is central Ohio where a lot of dudes spit and we learn nothing about why it harbors and breeds - and it does - such weirdness, animal or otherwise. Both writers seemed rushed to explore, weakly, off their own anchor stones. And certainly there's enough discrepancies for some conversation - but what speaks more is at least one of the authors hasn't read the competing piece - what is up with that, Sherlock Holmes of reporting? For starters, it seems, get over yourself C. Jones - you've ample time to reply to praise on your Tweetdeck but can't be bothered for continuing research that may hurt feeling. Before you come back at my nuts, white tiger style, please read The Tiger, by John Valliant. Then again, perhaps that dude doesn't post here, so why bother with such details?

 

Dear Freuchen Icepick,

• Sometimes a story is good enough that you don't need to try to find motivations. Sometimes a story is best when it stands on its own. Trying to explain why Zanesville, Ohio, bred this mess would require painting with an unfairly broad brush. Who says it has anything to do with Zanesville? The only fucked-up person in the story is Thompson, as far as I'm concerned. Everyone else seemed to be doing his or her job.
• I agree that it's strange that Jones hasn't read Heath's story. But why the fuck does it matter if you're just judging Jones' work, which was completed before Heath's story was published? If Jones were to go on and write a book about the Zanesville incident, which seems unlikely, then I'd fully expect him to read Heath's piece. For now, he appears to be moving on to the next big story. At some point, every writer has to. The lack of curiosity is interesting, but I don't understand why you're attacking him for it.
• I've read The Tiger. Did you want Jones or Heath to explain why the lions and tigers and bears were chasing horses and (occasionally) people? The book was great. Valliant is incredible. But that kind of analysis wouldn't have fit the tones of the stories. It's best served in a book, where Valliant had the open pages and time to dig well beyond the facts and into the philosophy of the matter.
• It seems as though at least half of the primary posters in this thread have actually read both stories, and several people have very directly criticized Jones. So I'm not sure where you (or Piotr) are getting off with the snide comments about people only reading a story because its author is an occasional visitor to the site.

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Sincerely,

Versatile

 

Continuing research? Am I writing a book now? Jeez, I had no idea. That's awesome.

I read the GQ story yesterday afternoon, after its editor talked shit about mine in the Observer, and then later on Twitter, because people love talking shit on the Internet. It wasn't a lack of curiosity that put me off. It was paranoia.

I'm biased of course, but I thought the best parts of Chris's story were his insights into Terry Thompson. In my version, Terry was just the fuse that started the events that night. I didn't really feel comfortable getting into why he did what he did, because there are at least six possible reasons that I can see. Once he put a bullet through his brain, it's all just educated speculation, trying to figure out what he was thinking. I like to think that after getting out of jail, he realized what a life spent inside a cage was like, and he thought his animals would escape and at least be free for a little while. But I don't know that's true.

That being said, if Chris had just written about Terry Thompson—the story of the man behind the Zanesville massacre—that would have been better, I think, structurally. (I think, in this rare instance, you can assume that most readers have at least heard of the incident itself.) He had some great details in there. For me: Open with his bike ride back to Zanesville, end with his pulling the trigger, and weave the rest of his life story in between. I think that would have been a really good story. Just the story of Terry Thompson.

But I'm also a fan of really focussed material. Chris is a really good writer, and these are the choices he made. I made my choices. I'm a big fan of stories that tell something larger through a small window—keyhole stories, I call them, but I'm not sure if that's the technical name. Other people like grander, more sweeping work. They'll prefer Chris's story, and I understand that.

I always go back to the movie Ali, with Will Smith. For me, that movie would have been better if it had just been about the Ernie Terrell fight, the What's My Name? fight. You tell that story, you tell me everything I need to know about Ali. Instead, they tried to cover ten years and however many fights and marriages in two hours. You can't do it. The same way, in a magazine piece, you can't do everything—you know, like write an entire book about tigers. I can't, anyway.

As for the start with a bang structure, of course, that works plenty of times. William Nack is a great writer for good reason. I tend not to use it that much, again, because I like the slow build, and I write like movies a lot. Not that many movies begin with a giant explosion. Think of Reservoir Dogs. They start in the diner. They could have started in the bank, or in the car, with Tim Roth bleeding in the back seat, on with the planning of the heist, the recruitment, or with Mr. Pink running down the road with a gun in his hand.

There are 1,000 ways to tell a story. Luckily, here, Chris and I just needed two. I actually think it's kind of cool that from the same starting point, we each went in very different directions. I hope professors use both stories in their classes some day. And I hope I'm never again writing so directly against stiff competition.

 

Now that I think about it, does Reservoir Dogs start with the diner scene? In my head it does, but maybe it starts with Mr. Pink running down the road.

If it doesn't start with the diner scene, that's what I would have started with, at least. If I had the imagination to come up with that diner scene in the first place.

 

Why that book Icepick? Why not Man-Eaters of Kumaon? Or why not The Ghosts of Tsavo? Or, heck, why not watch The Ghost and the Darkness?

 

Great, now Stealer's Wheel is going to be playing in my head all day.

 

Was Mack referring to any specific medium or form?
I was taught that philosophy the first time I went out to cover a game.

For something with a quick turnaround, aka a daily newspaper story, this is spot on.
But I can understand Nack's approach may not always be the best for a longer form or a magazine. Reading a magazine piece, I like the Rosebud approach where you get bits and pieces throughout and the whole story unfolds at the end.

 

Maybe you are thinking of "Pulp Fiction"?

 

No, Reservoir Dogs has the diner scene, where they're talking about Madonna and Mr. Pink won't tip. Pulp Fiction is an exercise in completely messed up chronology. I don't think you could do that in a written story. You need the visual cues to keep you anchored.

 

I'm holding out for a Bleacher Report slideshow on the top 10 animals involved in this story. I think the tiger eating Thompson has to be first, right?

 

No, it's RD. It's the Like a Virgin, tipping scene that opens the movie, and in seven minutes you are introduced to each character in a very entertaining fashion. Hell, I think one of the first words mentioned is "dick." If you can handle the imagery they paint about "Virgin" then you can handle the rest of the film.

Brilliant film making.

 

Late to this, just finished the story last night, but I echo the huzzahs. Just blunt and direct and let people figure out the meaning of it all on their own.

This has blockbuster movie written all over it. My question is what kind of movie? I don't know if "Based on a True Story" would be the way to go. It actually sounds like it would be a the basis of a great suspense or even horror flick.