Watch Your Tone!
In 3 Easy Steps
Alex Beggs doled out a lot of great advice the other night during our panel, and one of the most exciting things she said had to do with writing recipe headnotes. When working with a cookbook author (including Molly Baz and Andy Baraghani), she would often write three versions of a headnote for one recipe in order to hit the right tone. Few people know this, but at one time I wrote every single recipe headnote in Bon Appétit, which was amazing practice and was also emotionally debilitating. If I was happy with one—or even “satisfied”—I kept right on moving! Rewrites only if forced (and often I was forced). So it came as quite a shock that writers like Alex and the authors she works with would workshop several versions before settling. The discipline!
I’ve been thinking about this multi-take approach for days now, and about how I wrote headnotes for BA (brand voice) versus how I wrote the headnotes for my books (Carla voice). At BA, our editorial mission was about service. My boss wanted the headnotes to aid and abet the making of the recipes—and I got hammered for missing the mark, believe me.
For example, if a recipe had a long ingredient list, the headnote could focus on why it was worth having, say, three different types of herbs. If a dish called for a piece of equipment folks might not have, information on where to get it and what else you could make with it should be up top. If the recipe had a key moment or a specific step that had a trick to it, that was a great thing to mention. I wrote thousands of headnotes over eight years, and the ability to tease out that useful bit of information became second nature.