Sometime last Spring, Central Michigan Life’s adviser, Neil Hopp, asked a coworker, Dan Monson, and I to spend some time working with some of the newer sports reporters on how to write extensive feature and/or profile stories. The request came after our Hearst wins – Monson placed 14th in Personality/Profile Writing for “Hidden pain” and I placed 18th for “A passer’s perseverence.”
We never got a chance to schedule a sports writing workshop. But I did manage to write five tips down. I figured I would share them here, since I don’t have much else to update with for now.
(If you have any of your own tips, please share them in the comments section. It obviously takes more people to provide a well-rounded number of suggestions. Thanks!)
1) Really get to know the subject by getting involved in your interview.
When I began writing stories, I would write my set list of questions down for each source, go through the list and be done with the interview. I spent little time really getting to know who I was talking to, and it paid off very little with my writing. Ask tons of follow-up questions when they spur in your head. Get details clear. Ask “Why?” a lot, to get more perspective. The more you know about your subject, the more you can convey it in writing, and the better you can describe them.
One of my editors at The Saginaw News told me that if there’s any certainty, people love reading about people. Even in event coverages, ask about the person you are speaking with. But especially in features and profiles, it’s essential to get the little details that make a person full circle for the reader. That doesn’t mean just age, name, hometown. Get inside their head. What brought them to where they are now (depending on what your story is about)? What inspires them? That sort of thing.
2) Be prepared to spend a lot of time interviewing many subjects.
For “A passer’s perseverance,” I did an initial one-hour interview with the main subject, Brian Brunner, and at least two follow-up interviews that took, on average, 10-15 minutes. The follow-ups came after I initially began writing my story and mainly were to clear up details, ask questions I came across while writing the story or to find other sources to talk to with contact information. These are extremely important for fleshing out your story, so plan on spending this extra time with the subject.
It also is important to get as many sources as you can, even if you do not use them all. Get a wide range of perspectives. You need them. When doing a personality profile, always talk to the parents, if possible. Usually, nobody knows your subject better than they do. Talk to friends, other relatives, colleagues, anybody. The more sourcework you get, the better chance you have of getting quotes that will emotionally vitalize your story.
3) Remember the focus of your story.
This might seem easy, but when writing a feature story upwards of 1,000 to 2,000 words, it’s actually easy to fall off track with what you are writing about. Be creative, but don’t stray too much from the focus. Don’t write too much on a particular aspect unless it’s extremely pivotal to the story. If you are writing a life story, write the meat of it in chronological order so you don’t confuse the reader. Let the details you write unfold the rest.
For a good example, check Central Michigan Life coworker Jake May’s piece he wrote for The Buffalo News as an intern there. It is on a woman who retired after 15 years as director of the Buffalo City Mission’s Cornerstone Manor. The focus is on what drove the woman at City Mission – her time during World War II as a refugee and a particular moment at City Mission that resurfaced those memories. I’ll leave the suspense to you (so you can read it, of course), but you will notice how despite the different flashbacks and moments, Jake never truly wavered from the focus of the story – each one played a part into putting the story full circle.
4) Get involved with different elements of the story.
Don’t just focus on the writing part of your story. Attend the photo shoot, if there is one. Knowing the type of art that will go with the story helps me come up with a lead that will compliment the design almost perfectly. Or, even better, if you already wrote the story, offer your ideas to the photographer and let them know what the mood of the story is. That will help them in getting a better idea of what type of photo to shoot. This type of communication does absolute wonders for a front-page package. Dan Monson and Matthew Stephens’ work on “Hidden pain” is a great example.
If there are any other multimedia projects that go with the story, be a participant. Shoot a video interview. Get sound bytes. Ask the photo staff to come up with a slideshow, if they have file art of the subject on hand, maybe. In today’s age, stories generally are better told through the use of multimedia. Plus, it’s great experience for you in the long run.
5) Have many colleagues read your story to proofread and offer suggestions.
You have no idea how important this is until you actually do it. I had 3-4 different people, including Jake, read “A passer’s perseverance” before I submitted it for editing. Jake had me read the story I linked in #3 before he sent it in. Your colleagues will have a knack for catching things that went way over your head, and can offer suggestions that could make your story up to two times better than it was before.
Another example: I wrote a story last March/April on Detroit’s Final Four practices in a contest for one $1,000 scholarship as a participant in the United States Basketball Writers’ Association weekend workshop. With the story completed and not due for another week, I handed the story off to Neil, Jake, Dan and two others so they could look at the story. Their suggestions and improvement, I feel, helped me win the scholarship a couple weeks later after three judges from the Detroit News and Free Press read all the stories. (What also helped was the advice I received from some of the nation’s top sports writers, such as the Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan and Washington Post’s John Feinstein, who were at the workshop) I will post this story in a later update if you would like to see it.
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I could probably go on with little things that will help you when writing features and profiles, but that covers the gist of it. You never want to feel like you waved at what could possibly be a wonderful story for people to read. I’ve seen it happen all too often in my four years. As a journalist, you want to capture everything you can that will engage your readers and invoke a certain emotion in them. That is what will get you by in the long run as a writer.
Posted by Brian Manzullo at July 15, 2009
Journalism, Multimedia, Reporting