Storytelling and Feature Techniques

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Storytelling and Feature Techniques

• Were supposed to be tellers of tales as well as
  purveyors of facts. When we dont live up to
  that responsibility, we dont get read.
• - Bill Blundell, author of The Art and Craft of
  Feature Writing

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7 Coaching Tips

• Gather as many specific details as possible.
  Note of your observations and info from sources.
• Use show-in-action techniques.
• Vivid action verbs.
• For narrative writing, try to envision yourself
  at the scene.
• Gather details and chronology to reconstruct
  events as they occurred.
• Think of your story as a plot with a beginning,
  middle and climax. Characters in a book.
• Reading wellwriting well.

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A Cry in the Night

• Tom French 10-part series about a little murder
  for the St. Petersburg Times (FL)
• Based on interviews with 50 people and 6,000
  pages of court documents.
• Narrative Writing reconstructs events as if
  reader were witnessing them when they happened.

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A Cry in the Night

• The victim wasnt rich. She wasnt the daughter
  of anyone powerful. She was simply a 36-year-old
  woman trying to make a life for herself. Her
  name was Karen Gregory. The night she died,
  Karen became part of a numbing statisticIt was
  what people sometimes casually refer to as a a
  little murder.

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Page 187 narrative

• He was afraid. He ran to the bathroom and threw
  up.

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Narrative Writing

• A dramatic account of a fiction or nonfiction
  story.
• Requires thorough reporting and descriptive
  detail.

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Narrative Writing 5 Ws

• Jeff Klinkenberg
• Who character
• What plot
• When Chronology
• Why motive
• Where place

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Reading to Write

• Effective writers and reporters read others work
  such as literary journalists.

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Storytellers Instincts

• Extraordinary angles.
• Look for a theme.
• Gather good details.
• Details that stick out in your mind.
• Last 83 steps of a mans life.
• Mary Ann Lickteig, Feature Writer

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Leaf Peepers

• It's not just leaves peepers are looking for
• People seek reassurance in seasonal change,
  expert says
• By Mary Ann Lickteig, Associated Press writer
  BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Tour buses crawl through New
  England this time of year. They wind around tiny
  town squares and lumber up mountain roads. RV
  drivers enraptured by the color stop their rigs
  in the middle of the road, pop out and snap
  pictures. A luxury train with domed cars worms
  its way across the hilly countryside, packed with
  people staring at trees. This season called
  autumn in the rest of the world goes by a
  different name here fall foliage season. And
  fall foliage translates into big business in the
  Northeast.

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Flies

• Flies take off backward. So in order to swat
  one, you must strike slightly behind him. An
  interesting detail, and certainly one a writer
  would be able to pick up on. Other people see
  flies a writer sees how they move.
• William Ruehlmann, author of
• Stalking the Feature Story

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Ladder of Details
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3 Tools of Storytelling

• Theme
• Description
• Narrative

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Theme

• Concept that gives the story meaning.
• Why the readers want to read the story.
• Something universal death, life, fear, joy
• What every person can connect with in a story
• David Maraniss, Washington Post

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Description

• Should move the story its not for decoration
• Are these details necessary?
• Conservation of words.

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Descriptions

• Avoid adjectives
• Use vivid nouns and verbs.

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Adjectives

• The adjective is the authors opinion of what is
  going on, no more.
• A strong man came into the room, that only
  means he is strong in relation to me.
• Norman Mailer

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Analogies

• Now 891 and climbing. Thats more than twice as
  much as Sears best refrigerator-freezera
  26-cubic-footer with automatic ice and water
  dispensers on side-by-side doors. Thats almost
  as much as a Steinway grand piano.
• David Finkel, formerly of
• St. Petersburg Times

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Physical Descriptions

• Even Candra Smith, busy being adorable in her
  perky non-runners running outfit, actually
  looked at the track. A minute later, she was
  jumping around and yelling, along with most of
  the other 41,600 people on the old wooden benches
  at Franklin Field.

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Set the Scene

• Weatheronly if relevant to the story.

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Narrative Writing

• Show-in-action
• Dialogue
• Plot
• Reconstruction of event
• Dont need to attribute repeatedly

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The Des Moines Register

• From page 197
• She would have to allow extra driving time for
  fog.
• Jane Schorer,
• The Des Moines Register

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Foreshadowing and Tone

• Foreshadowing clue about something that will
  happen. (197)
• Tone or mood happiness, sadness, mystery,
  excitement, etc. Some kind of emotion. (197)

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Bringing it all Together

• Laws of Progressive Reader Involvement
• Four stages.
• Bill Blundell

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Stage 1

• Tease me, you devil.
• Give the reader a reason to continue reading.

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Stage 2

• Tell me what youre up to.
• What is the story really about.

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Stage 3

• Oh yeah? Prove what you said.
• Include the evidence to support your theme.

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Stage 4

• Help me remember it.
• Make it clear and forceful and give it a
  memorable ending.

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Blundell What Features Need

• Focus
• Lead and Nut Graph
• History
• Scope
• Reasons
• Impacts
• Moves and countermoves
• Future

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Focus

• What is the central theme?

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Lead and Nut Graph

• What is the point of the story?
• Often, it is introduced anecdotally or
  descriptively.

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History

• How did the problem develop?

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Scope

• How widespread is the development?

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Reasons

• Why is the problem or conflict happening now?

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Impacts

• Who is affected and how?

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Moves and Countermoves

• Who is acting to promote or oppose the
  development, and what are they doing?

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Future

• What could happen as a result of the situation
  and developments?

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Feature Exercise

• 30 minutes
• Locations choose card,
• Bring back a feature story idea from what you
  observe.
• Rich narrative description.
• Be prepared to share with the class.

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7 Coaching Tips

• Gather as many specific details as possible.
  Note of your observations and info from sources.
• Use show-in-action techniques.
• Vivid action verbs.
• For narrative writing, try to envision yourself
  at the scene.
• Gather details and chronology to reconstruct
  events as they occurred.
• Think of your story as a plot with a beginning,
  middle and climax. Characters in a book.
• Reading wellwriting well.