Chapter 11 - Writing the Story

You will be writing your story using a simplified process of multiple drafts. You will learn how to conquer the fear of the blank page to create a cohesive story or set of stories that are complete, clear, convincing and compelling. Following a four-stage process, you will concentrate on one of those goals in each draft. You will acquire the skill of breaking up long stories using sidebars, boxes and bullets. Finally, you will get an overview of writing as part of a team investigation.

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Exercises

Look at the writing structure in other reporters’ stories

  1. Go to the Web site of the nonprofit investigative reporting group Propublic at http://propublica.org. Select a story and analyze how the writer structured the narrative.
    1. Why do you think the writer or writers chose to lead the story the way they did?
    2. How did they handle the organization of all the information included in the story?
    3. What evidence did the writers cite to make the story convincing?
    4. Is the story compelling, and what do you think makes it so?
  2. Go to the Web site for Mother Jones magazine at http://motherjones.org, search for and read the story “Pinto Madness.”
    1. What makes the story so convincing?
    2. If publishing it today, how might you break it into parts to go into a print package or Web site?

Big Story Steps

Writing the first draft

  1. 11.1 Write the first draft of your story from the outline you developed in Chapter 10. Try to make it as complete as possible:
    1. Identify the central characters.
    2. Identify the problem.
    3. Explain how the problem works.
    4. Explain why the problem occurs.
    5. Show how we got to this point.
    6. Point out possible solutions.
  2. 11.2 If you are working as a team, you could write a first draft in a number of ways:
    1. Put the outline on a wiki and assign each member of the team a different section of the story to write. One person should take on the task of connecting all the pieces together and giving the story shape, consistency and flow.
    2. Each person in the class could write a version of the first draft. Then the team leader will take the best version and distribute it to the rest of the team. You will write the second draft from that version of the first draft.
    3. Together, rewrite the lead, the nut graph and the ending. One person is assigned to write the first draft using the outline, and the lead, nut graph and ending composed by the class.