Your Longest Inch Count

So did you quote the dude in the coma?

 

330 inches split into two days.

520 inches split into five days.

 

Some of these inch counts are unreal. I've worked 16 years and never written anything that long. And I don't have any desire to write 520 inches ever unless I'm getting paid by the inch.

 

To each his own, Doc.

 

Sorry if that came across wrong Double, I wasn't judging you or I didn't mean for it to sound that way.

I just know how long, tiresome and mind-numbing cranking out a long story can be. I really don't have any desire to do that to myself but, of course, if I was asked to do a long piece like that, I would. I just wouldn't enjoy it until it was over.

 

You raise a valid point, Doc. Both those pieces were absolute hell because of the time commitment, the editors who got involved, and the self-doubt that raged during the writing process. And both did my marriage, my physique, my hairline, and my state-of-mind no favors whatsoever.

Major newspaper projects can be a Faustian bargain. Yes, the final product can be (emphasis on CAN BE) considerably rewarding, but to get that many inches in the newspaper and tell the kind of stories that require that many inches, a little bit of your soul gets taken away. At times, it feels like the fight required is simply not worth it. But sometimes it is.

There is a considerable amount of honor, and I truly mean this, in filing 30-inch, well-written features and never aspiring to go much beyond that. Because when you cross the 50-inch mark, suddenly all kinds of people have to weigh in, not only to justify the the space, but also to justify their jobs. And that can be a recipe for disaster.

However, I'm still a big believer that newspapers can, and should, do long-form narrative. Jim Sheeler's Pulitzer-winning piece from the Rocky Mountain News, "Final Salute," came in at more than 9,800 words. And yet it earned every inch.

Neither of my pieces rose to that level of excellence, but both aspired to do that kind of storytelling.

And yes, painful as it was, I'll probably do it again someday. Even though I swore during the process I would never, ever be so foolish again.

 

shocking.

 

Anywhere between 80 and 110, depending on the method of measurement. The inch-count button on the computers at work say 110, but that's awfully high in my opinion. The way the sports staff counts inches is by using the word count feature and taking all the characters, plus spaces, and dividing that total by 200. Then you get 80.

Which is right? You guys have any other ways?

Anyway, the story in question was just printed this week. It deals with a softball team's attempt to overcome adversity as a player struggles with her mother's cancer, and I just posted it to the Writers' Workshop this morning.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/42989/

(Shameless attempt to divert folks to the Workshop. Sorry, it doesn't get much traffic compared to the main boards. Please check it out and share your thoughts.)

 

Do you ever have anything meaningful to add, or is it always just a hit-and-run one-line insult? You must really hate yourself.

 

72 inches -- that's right, 6 feet of copy -- on everything you need to know about the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. (Strangely, it was for a 1998 newspaper. I'm just kidding.)

To be fair, it was broken into bite-sized nuggets, but it was written and presented as one story with a running thread.

 

I was going to say the longest thing I wrote was probably a "magazine style" gamer I wrote once at a weekly, just as an experiment. It was a big game on the road, but it was on Tuesday night – too late to get into the section for that week.

So I pulled out all the stops and decided to write the thing as if Sports Illustrated was there. Maybe 60 inches.

I recall being pleased with the result. I have no idea if it was actually worth a damn or not.

Then I recalled writing the day-by-day wrapup for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. That was 100-plus ... and in USA Today.

Of course, as with Hack's effort, it was broken into bite-sized bits.

 

Probably outing myself, but what the heck.

I once wrote 72 inches on a clown.

;D