Mark Pawlosky, author of 'Hack' - Journalist talks using experience for thrillers, why good writing is re-writing, and keeping a style guide handy
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2022
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mark Pawlosky worked as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was an editor for CNBC.com, and is now using that experience of sourcing scoops to write the Nik Byron Investigation series.
The first is 'Hack', it looks at Nik Byron getting the story of how top secret US surveillance technology was stolen. He needs to expose the plot and get the story before he, and it, is silenced.
We talk about brevity, why it's important to keep things tight and not waste everyone's time. Also you can hear why his process is mostly re-reading and re-writing, and why he thinks good writing is re-writing.
And be jealous of Mark's very own, purpose-built, writing room.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, ahoy and welcome to writers' routine. |
| 0:11.3 | This week we're chatting to Mark Pauloski. |
| 0:14.1 | Mark worked as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and many other publications across the world. |
| 0:19.7 | And he's taken that experience and knowledge |
| 0:21.8 | and written his first thriller with it. It's called Hack. It stars Nick Byron as a journalist |
| 0:27.5 | investigating crimes in conspiracy. Now we talk about why sometimes Mark struggles with the writing, |
| 0:35.0 | but it's the reward that keeps him going, that makes him drive on. |
| 0:38.5 | Also, you can hear why he keeps a style guide always nearby, |
| 0:42.9 | and we talk about what reporting and interviews taught him about moving a story along. |
| 0:47.7 | Writing long pieces that are just void of dialogue, I think is deadly or can be deadly. |
| 0:57.0 | So having your characters, even if it's, even it's just for spice, I think is really important |
| 1:05.0 | that you have a human element in there. And that was true of journalism. Who are your sources? How good are your |
| 1:11.5 | sources? You know, what do they have to say? Are they saying something that is, you know, |
| 1:16.4 | that is moving the story forward? There is more with Mark Poloski in this week's writers routine. |
| 1:31.0 | Yes, welcome along to the show. |
| 1:33.3 | My name's Dan, this is writer's routine. |
| 1:45.6 | It's where we take the best authors around new emerging authors, people who have done it for years, people who write in their bedrooms at night, people who manipulate their entire day to get their creativity down, to give it a place to work. Not just a place, but a time and the space around them too. |
| 1:53.0 | This week, we talked to Mark Poloski. He's worked as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, |
| 1:59.5 | was an editor for CNBC.com, oversaw financial news channels across the world, and studied as well at the Missouri School of Journalism. |
| 2:07.1 | And he finally got time to write down all of that experience as a novel. |
| 2:12.2 | Well, a couple of novels, really. |
| 2:13.4 | The first one is hack. |
... |
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