BILF: The Man on The Wire ... William F. Zorzi

William F. Zorzi worked for the Baltimore Sun for two decades and then turned his journalistic expertise into writing for the small screen. The result of that just happened to be The Wire, which received both critical acclaim and cult status.

Mr. Zorzi is at the Bookworm International Literary Festival 2009 this month. Those lucky enough to get tickets can see him talk about the line between fiction and hard-hitting reality at The Bookworm on March 11, moderated by his former Sun colleague Gady Epstein, or at his screenwriting workshop on March 14. For those without tickets, we managed to catch up with him for a few words.

the Beijinger: Your varied and illustrious career has centered upon Baltimore, what
has inspired you to come to Beijing, what do you expect from the city and what can people expect from you during your visit?

William F. Zorzi: I’m not sure how “varied” my career has been, although I did cover a number of different beats – both in and out of the City of Baltimore -- and worked as an editor at The Sun (hard as it might be to admit having been one of those people, an editor, I mean). I also fear that “illustrious” might be a bit hyperbolic in describing my toiling in the trenches at my hometown newspaper. But you’re right, my career has pretty much been here in the City of Charm (even the career as a bureaucrat, before The Sun).

I like Baltimore. I live here. My family’s here. My friends are here. I’ve lived elsewhere and travelled domestically and abroad, as a tourist and for The Sun, but I do keep coming back home, to this fair city on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. “The Land of Pleasant Living,” a local beer company used to call it, many years ago. It’s a very nice place, despite how it’s portrayed on the damned television.

As for Beijing – the real question -- I must tell you that nothing really “inspired” me to visit; I was invited. Which is not to say that I’m not excited about visiting. I am, very much so – and honored, as well, to be a journalist/screenwriter speaking at a literary festival, where books are traditionally the focus. So far as how they came to find me here in humble little Baltimore, one of my former reporters, Gady Epstein, now in Beijing for Forbes magazine, contacted me on behalf of the Bookworm, and the rest is history.

What do I expect? Well, it seems to be a fairly interesting city, this Beijing. It is, they tell me, an enormous, vibrant capital of one of the most exotic nations on earth, a place I’ve not seen. It’s big. There are a lot of sights. It’s perse. I hear the food’s not too shabby. I expect, seriously, that I’ll be a bit overwhelmed with all that is Beijing, and I’m looking forward to it. What can people expect from me? I’m hopeful that no one will know I’m there and will, therefore, expect nothing from me.

tbj:The Wire has been described as "TV as great modern literature." Have shows such as The Wire legitimized TV writing as literature? Do you see TV writing in such a way?

WFZ: I don’t know if I’m the one to be blessing the description of “The Wire” as “great modern literature.” I’ll leave that to the critics to assert or knock down. It is a television show that many say is well written, and I am proud to have been part of it. What I would say in the vein of “literature” is that “The Wire” has been compared to a novel, with every episode serving as a chapter. In that regard, it is more like “literature,” if you will, than traditional episodic television, where every episode is very much self-contained. That much, I’ll buy. As for TV writing being “legitimized” as literature by “The Wire,” that, too, feels a little highbrow for me. I’m just a newspaperman who got lucky.

One factor whose effect you might be seeing is that the writers on “The Wire” were not television writers. David Simon and I were newspaper reporters (though he had experience in television writing and had authored two nonfiction books, “Homicide” and “The Corner”). Ed Burns was a cop turned schoolteacher who coauthored “The Corner.” Simon brought in crime-genre novelists Richard Price, Dennis Lehane and George Pelecanos – guys who are at the top of their game – to write episodes. So, the writers came to this improbable series with a different set of eyes. Not your typical lineup for writing a television series.

I will also point out that storytelling is changing, or more correctly, the way stories are presented to, or obtained by, the consumer is changing. As anyone in the publishing industry will tell you, products sold on paper – as literature has historically been disseminated – seem to be on the wane. With that in mind, I believe we will see more and more stories told through other media -- on film or some form of it, telecast, or put out over the Internet for consumption on some sort of device, portable or not. At the same time, though, the core of good storytelling will not change or die off; it’s as old as the cavemen sitting around the fire recounting the latest run-in with Bob, the wooly mammoth. The oral tradition begat the written tradition, which begat the visual tradition. The move to a visual medium seems simply to be a step in the evolution. On “The Wire,” story was paramount. Always. So, perhaps that’s what people are seeing on “The Wire” – more literary, or, I’ll even allow, more literate, storytelling on television. Having said that, keep in mind that television is a many splendored thing, offering different things to different people. One man’s dose of “great modern literature” is another man’s after-dinner nap. One woman’s evening of haute culture is another woman’s dash down the runway for a chance at the Ginsu knives. It’s all good, as they say. Until it’s not.

tbj: Would your move into screenwriting been possible without the years of experience in journalism? Do you think that screenwriters can successfully write about worlds they know little of?

WFZ: Probably not. If I had not been in journalism, specifically at The Sun, I would not have met David Simon. I’d probably be collecting my 35-year pin as a traffic engineer for the City of Baltimore right now, instead. But did years of experience in journalism help me? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, particularly for a show such as “The Wire,” which prided itself on realistic and accurate portrayals of the way it is -- on the street, in the bureaucracy or anywhere within Baltimore’s universe as revealed on the show. Seeing it, understanding it, knowing it, recreating it, all of these things make for good journalism. Reporting well requires that you have a clear-eyed view of what you’re writing about. So, in that, journalism, limited as it can be, is excellent training for any kind of writing. At the same time, “I think life experience helps make a better reporter. Give me someone who’s actually worked for a living and can write a declarative sentence over some kid with a master’s degree in journalism any day.”

As for your second question, “I don’t believe any kind of writer can successfully write on worlds about which he or she knows little. (On the other hand, I guess it depends on how you define “successfully.”) And I don’t think I’m alone in that thinking.” As for my personal experience, I’m an obsessive researcher – something that didn’t go away when I started working on “The Wire’ -- so that’s a question that doesn’t quite make sense to me. I have to have it right in my head before I feel confident enough to put it on paper. Even as a reporter, I didn’t really write for the masses, as the editors would have liked. I always tried to write for the insiders (unless on a gun-to-the-head deadline, when I simply had to slam it out). Politics, after all, is an insider’s game. That requires having a full working knowledge of what you’re writing about. The worst thing I can imagine hearing is, “That’s bullshit. That guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Well, actually, I can probably imagine hearing worse things, but you get my drift.

tbj: Where is the line between reality and fiction? What are the difficulties in writing such realistic television?

WFZ: I ask that question all the time: Where is the line between reality and fiction? And when I get the answer right, they give me a weekend pass away from the institution. The line you should be asking about is the line between reality and interesting, because, face it, day-to-day life, that is, the reality for many people, is usually pretty uneventful. In a word, boring. It’s the drama that’s the drama. So, reality, per se, is not going to get you where you want to go as a storyteller.

At the same time, I understand what you’re asking, and I believe that, excepting fantasy, a story is diminished by it’s not being “kept real, y’all.” Except when it’s not kept real, on just so many hours of television. But people who know, know what’s real, what’s right. And when they believe it, I think they’re more invested as viewers. The difficulty you ask about is that sometimes you have to cheat, maybe just a little bit, for the sake of the story. That’s when you can only pray that you’ve made the cheat seem so seamless that the viewer doesn’t notice and stop believing in the story.