How to write a good story—the first time

Procrastination Kills: do not wait to get started

After picking up an assignment, do not wait to get started. Even if Homecoming or Shack-a-Thon does not start for another month, begin brainstorming ideas and collecting background information. Make sure you have an angle in mind before an event starts so you can prepare interview questions.

Give yourself at least one week to do the story from start to finish. One to two days to collect background information, brainstorm ideas and do preliminary interviews. Spend another one to two days writing the article and then use the rest of the time to rewrite and polish the final article. Important and busy people can be difficult to get a hold of so give yourself plenty of time to play phone/e-mail tag. Do not wait to get started after picking up an assignment.

Sources

To get all sides of a story you need to interview as many sources as possible. Interview more sources than you could possibly use. The more quotes and information you have at your disposal, the easier writing the article will be.

Always attribute sources using “said” after the person’s name. Include first and last name, year and major. Ex. Cindy Lou, a freshman in biological sciences, said.

In case you need to ask a few more questions after initial interviews, it is a good idea to have cell phone numbers of some of the interviewee’s. This is most helpful if you need to follow up with someone after an event.

Before submitting a final draft of a story, always double check the names and majors of your sources. Nothing is more embarrassing then spelling someone’s name wrong.

Interviewing

Good interviews turn into good stories. Make the interviewee as comfortable as possible, schedule interviews to be held where your subject wants to meet; their apartment or office, etc. Avoid having your subjects coming to meet with you in the office, this pulls them out of their environment and makes them less likely to speak to you comfortably.

Before you set up an interview, be sure to have thought out multiple questions to ask that relate to the subject whom your interviewing and ones that will provide the detail needed to support the angle of the story. Being unprepared for an interview will significantly decrease your chances of getting enough information to write a story.

Make an appointment for ample time and state the purpose of the interview. Always identify yourself as being a writer for the Agromeck yearbook.

Ask open-ended questions as they provide the subject the opportunity to answer in more detail opposed to simple yes/no questions. The more detail and helpful quotes you obtain from interviewing, the easier it will be to write the story.

Ask multiple follow-up and clarification questions. The more questions you can ask, the better. It provides the subject more opportunities to provide you with information for your story.

After finishing an interview, be sure to thank the subject for their time and cooperation. Ask for contact information in case you need to ask more follow-up questions. Having the subjects contact information is valuable in case you need to track them down again. Without an e-mail address or phone number, it may be hard to reach them again.

Short Paragraphs

Write brief transitions to let your sources tell the story. Transitions provide background information to lead into quotes. They do not need to be novel length. Brief transitions allow the quotes from sources to tell the story, yet provide enough background information for the quotes to make sense.

How do i write the lead?

The purpose of the lead is to grab the reader’s attention. A poor lead could cause the reader to skip the rest of the story. A good lead entices the senses enough to where if you closed your eyes, you could imagine the situation, time and place in which your story takes place. To entice those senses use descriptive words, active verbs, similes, metaphors, personification, alliteration and contrast/comparison phrases.

Think like a reader

Don’t forget to always think like a reader. Even though you are writing the article and know the details of the story, don’t forget to include all of those details. Think about what questions should be answered for the readers and ask yourself the question ‘Have I included all of the details of the story so that the reader will understand the facts?’

In thinking like a reader, don’t forget to read your stories out loud after you have finished writing. Does the wording and sentence structure make sense and sound good?

Stay focused

Stay on topic when writing an article. Do not try to cover every aspect of Welcome Wolfpack Week. Have a specific angle. Ex. Welcome Wolfpack Week provides students with an opportunity to learn about campus life before school starts. Writing a story that tells what happened at every event in a week is boring, instead try focusing on what students get out of attending the event or why students chose to attend. Yearbook stories are not intended to provide general overviews, they are intended to delve into interesting subjects and tell the stories of interesting people.