GET THE STORY
By Donald Maxwell
JSRCC English Department
Richmond - Take
another look at
the story you told us last time, but this time write a newspaper
version of it.
Be sure to use the journalists' heuristic: who? what? where? when? why?
and how?
A good "lead" (the very first sentence in the article) will attempt to
answer all of those heuristic questions, although not necessarily in
that
order.
TYPES OF NEWSPAPER
WRITING
There are at least three different types of newspaper writing: news
stories,
feature articles, and editorials. Unless you have some extra-special
reason
not to, please write yours as a straight news story.
In other words, pretend that you are a newspaper reporter writing a
straight
news story for the front page. Do NOT write it as a feature story or an
editorial.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Before you begin to write your piece, you had better read a few
professionally-
written news stories to see how they were done.
-
How are they organized?
-
What types of information appear where?
-
What is the point of view?
-
What is the tone of voice?
-
How are they titled?
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Read some feature stores and editorials, too, so their differences and
similarities will be clear to you. After all, if you were building a
house,
you would examine different types of houses first. If you were going to
bake a cake, you would sample some pastry.
HEADINGS
In this news-story assignment, I've added subheadings to show clearly
where
each new section begins. Please do the same in your story.
Write
your own headline, too.
EDITING A NEWS STORY
Suppose you were a newspaper editor and had only a few minutes before
your
printing deadline to shorten some reporter's story by, say, 30%.
How would you decide what to cut out? (The answer is simple and
logical.
It should not take you more than a second or so--IF the story was
well-written.)
YOUR POSTSCRIPT TO ME
In your postscript this time, you might consider how this piece--when
it
is finished--differs from the piece you wrote for the "Trouble"
Invitation.
In other words, you might focus on the finished product this time,
rather
than on the process of writing.
EDITING THE WRITTEN
PRODUCT
On the subject of finished product-- because you will be working as a
newspaper
reporter for this assignment, it seems reasonable for me to work as a
newspaper
editor. So I will "blue pencil" your piece, the way a real editor might
point out what improvements will be needed before the story is ready to
be printed up in the paper.
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