Chapter 10

 Narrative Writing  A dramatic account of fiction or non- fiction ▪ Requires thorough reporting & descriptive detail ▪ Dialogue helps to enhance ▪ Structured to put the reader on the scene ▪ Sources are like characters reliving the events ▪ Must include the basic elements of news

 Reading to Write  Good writers are good readers  Well read journalists ▪ Immerse themselves in a subject ▪ Write using characters, scene, dialogue and plot ▪ Factual stories written like fiction  Storytelling techniques ▪ Used for more than just feature stories

 Reporting Tools ▪ Good storytelling requires using observation & gathering details  During the reporting process ▪ You don’t always what you need ▪ Ask everything ▪ What were people thinking, saying, hearing, feeling, etc. ▪ Be precise ▪ Take notes on dialogue about your story ▪ That you may overhear

 Writing Tools  What to do once details are gathered. ▪ The better you are as a reporter ▪ The harder it will be to decide what to use. ▪ The three basic tools of storytelling are ▪ Theme ▪ Descriptive writing techniques ▪ Narrative writing techniques

 Descriptive Techniques ▪ Too much description will clutter a story ▪ Too little will leave the reader blank  Description ▪ Should advance the meaning of your story ▪ Should never be used for decoration ▪ Should not have more words than necessary

 Techniques of good descriptive writing  Avoid Adjectives ▪ Write specific detail with vivid nouns/verbs ▪ Adjectives can lead to opinion ▪ “A strong man entered the room” vs “ A man entered the room”  Use Analogies ▪ Compare a vague concept to something familiar ▪ Example pg 200

 Limit physical descriptions ▪ Use when they are relevant to the content ▪ Work well in certain kinds of stories ▪ Profiles, crime, disasters, etc  Example pg 200  Avoid sexist/Racist descriptions ▪ When using descriptions of people ▪ Beware of sexism, racism, other biased writing ▪ To avoid bias ask yourself: ▪ Would this work for both genders and all ethnicities

 Show people in action ▪ One of the most effective ways to describe people ▪ Include details to create a visual of the action.  Use lively verbs ▪ Lively verbs create a vibrant and excitement story ▪ A jumper died Monday when his parachute failed ▪ A jumper died Monday after plummeting to the earth when his parachute failed

 Set the scene ▪ Establish the where and when ▪ Make sure elements used to set the scene are relevant to your story ▪ Beware of using cliché’s or similar language

 Narrative techniques ▪ Show-in-action description ▪ Dialogue, plot & reconstruction of an event  Requires a different kind of questioning ▪ Do thorough reporting ▪ Ask a variety of questions

 Create tone ▪ Unlike hard news stories ▪ Storytelling should create a “tone” or “mood”  Happiness, sadness, mystery, excitement, etc. ▪ Don’t announce the mood  Elements of writing should reveal it

 Storytelling Structure  Still need to get the focus first.  Can be arranged: ▪ Topically ▪ Chronologically ▪ Following literary plot form ▪ Beginning, middle end

 Narrative Writing  Write the story/ending first ▪ Then write your lead  Suggested stages (by William Blundell) ▪ Stage 1 – Tease me, you devil ▪ Stage 2 – Tell me what you’re up to ▪ Stage 3 – Oh yeah? ▪ Stage 4 – Help me remember.

 Elements of features/narratives ▪ Focus ▪ Lead and nut graph ▪ History ▪ Scope ▪ Reasons ▪ Impacts ▪ Moves and countermoves ▪ Future

 Reminders of good storytelling techniques ▪ Use concrete details rather than vague adjectives ▪ Use dialogue when possible and appropriate ▪ Set a scene ▪ Use action verbs ▪ Observe or ask questions involving your senses ▪ Use show-in-action description ▪ Tell story using “beginning, middle, end”

 Narrative Storytelling  Reporting techniques ▪ Establishing chronology ▪ Gathering detail ▪ Asking questions to reconstruct events using senses  Writing techniques ▪ Sections techniques & time sequences ▪ Use chronological order  With cliffhanger endings ▪ Short sentences, pacing, dialogue, definitions, etc (pg 214)

 Serial Narratives ▪ Stories written like novels in a chapter form  Need a compelling plot with these elements ▪ A character coping with a problem ▪ Development of the situation ▪ Resolution  One type of organizational technique ▪ Time frames  Past & Present  Past, Present, Future

 Web storytelling ▪ Ideal for storytelling in many forms  Storytelling formats on the web include ▪ Multimedia ▪ Photo essays ▪ Short chunks ▪ Serial narratives  Online storytelling can be interactive ▪ Polls, blogs, Q&A, write your own ending, etc