Make Routine Stories Special

By STEVE BUTTRY
Special to Poynter.org

Move beyond meeting stories. Most meetings are inherently boring. That's why the public doesn't attend them. Unless the action at a meeting is unusually exciting, look beyond the action to the impact on readers. This requires advance planning. Look at the agenda and ask how possible actions might affect readers or how a report at the meeting might reflect something important happening in your community.

Henry Cordes of the Omaha World-Herald advises: "You can do some interviews in advance to put some real people in the story." Make your story an issue story in which the meeting is the news peg, rather than a meeting story. Henry made a page-one centerpiece of a routine Regents meeting by doing some advance work on minority graduation rates, which were going to be reported at the meeting.

Look behind meetings. If the meetings you're assigned to cover are too routine, investigate whether the group is violating open meetings laws by debating or deciding key questions behind closed doors, presenting a routine facade to the public.

Become a storyteller. When a meeting itself is worthy of a story, tell it like a story. Who are the characters? What is the plot? Describe the setting. Set up the conflict. Build to the climax. Follow the resolution. Use dialogue to tell parts of the story.

Find the full story. Ken Fuson of the Des Moines Register notes that "most newspaper stories are endings." Dig enough to find and tell the full story. Help the ending make sense by presenting it as the climax or resolution of a full story.

Use story elements. Use story elements to tell other types of routine stories: crimes, parades, festivals, state fairs, first day of school, storms, awards, graduations, sporting events. Elements such as character, setting, plot, conflict, climax and dialogue are present in nearly every assignment. The writer who recognizes and develops these elements turns the routine story into a treat for reader and writer alike. Jack Hart of the Oregonian says reporters "need to understand basic narrative, including the protagonist-complication-resolution framework and the exposition-rising action-climax-denouement structure. They need to know the difference between summary narrative and dramatic narrative, direct quotes and dialogue, topic construction and scenic construction."

Take detailed notes. You can't develop the story elements when you sit down to write. You must have them in mind as you are gathering information. Your notebook should include details that allow you to develop a character or describe a setting. At key moments, you should record dialogue in detail, including mannerisms, action, gestures and facial expressions.

Find a fresh approach. Regard the routine story as a challenge to your storytelling ability, not a task to be rushed through routinely. Fuson once got one of the most mundane, mind-numbing assignments any reporter can face: the year's first springlike day. He wrote an award-winning story: a single 300-word paragraph describing what Iowans do on the first day of spring. Don't give in to the temptation to tell the routine story routinely. That identifies you as a routine writer.

Find a fresh perspective. Most times, a science fiction convention would run in the local section of the Sunday paper. Daniel Finney of the Omaha World-Herald pushed it to the front page by comparing that gathering to the Berkshire Hathaway Corp. annual meeting the week before. "Reporters should give themselves permission to take more chances -- try new things," Finney advises. "Slip in a pop culture reference. Try using song lyrics. Liven up the writing by giving yourself permission to sound like you."

Find analogies. Rick Tapscott of the Des Moines Register asks, "What does this event, situation, statement remind you of? Does it resemble something with which a reader may be familiar? The governor's latest tactic with the Legislature is like Tom Osborne's 1988 battle against Oklahoma, which came down to the last-second trick play." Finney's sci-fi story is an example of an analogy that became the basis for the story.

Seek the hidden conflict. Some organizations try to fight their important battles behind the scenes, away from public view. Identify sources who might not be pleased with the apparent tranquility and ask them what the real story is. Ask them where the conflict is hiding. Look around the periphery of the organization and see who is shut out from the power structure.

Watch the people. Nearly every event you cover is important to someone. Focus on the people. Find the person whose story is different from the rest of the crowd's and tell that person's story. Carol Napolitano was working a Saturday shift for the Omaha World-Herald once and got assigned to a story about a Boys and Girls Club taking a field trip to the state prison. The story could have been loaded with cliches about bad guys doing some good by telling kids not to follow in their footsteps. She watched the people. She found the boy in the group whose father was in the prison. Her story became his story and it moved from routine to powerful.

Find the non-routine view. Many of the events you regard as routine are not routine to someone else. Every crime, fire or accident is a traumatic and memorable event to the victims. Your paper covers the state fair and the first day of school every year so it feels routine to you. But each fair is some exhibitor's first fair and each first day of school is some teacher's or student's first day or the first day of some teacher's last year. Each annual business meeting is some stockholder's first (or last) meeting. Find a person for whom this event isn't routine and use him to make your story fresh.

Search for life stories in the routine story. Every year every high school presents a play, sometimes several. Fuson won the ASNE non-deadline writing award for telling the human dramas of the lives of the students in a school play. At each routine event are people struggling with debt, disease, divorce, death and other burdens. Is the mundane meeting an island of sanity for a worried participant? Does the intersection between routine and chaos or between grief and daily business present a story? Is someone recovering from surgery thankful for the strength to make it to that boring meeting or struggling to sit through it? Is some official missing an important family event for this hearing?

Find the bigger story in a series of routine events. Teacher negotiations are an annual story for most papers. Reporters probably are grateful that most of the talks themselves are held in closed sessions. Carol Pitts, formerly of the Des Moines Register, made a powerful story by gaining access to all the talks for a year, with the material embargoed until after a contract was reached. While each meeting itself was routine and potentially boring, the collective story became a fascinating story of conflict, with fully developed characters. She didn't focus on the incremental progress but on the larger conflict.

Know the background, but don't get lost in it. Mike Reilly of the Omaha World-Herald advises: "Check for previous stories on the subject so you know the context and will recognize the news. Clear up your translations of technical language and jargon with sources as early as possible so you can be clear and sparse with the basic facts. You then will have more space in the paper and time on your hands to tell the story in the most effective way possible."

Steal ideas. When you read a story that succeeded in making the routine assignment special, ask the reporter how she came up with the idea. You will learn not just from the story and the idea, but from the thought process that led to them.

Look for superlatives. Tapscott notes that superlatives, when accurate, elevate a story above the routine. "Can this event, situation, statement be said to be the first, last, most recent, most aggressive yet; this biggest, most expensive, the final leg in a relay race...?"

Focus. Bill Dedman of the Chicago Sun-Times advises: "Don't try to tell the history of Cinco de Mayo, or cover the entire Earth Day story, in what will probably be a short story anyway. Find one person to tell the story. For example, at a graduation, find one graduate or parent -- or person who idolizes the speaker. Find one fifth-grader at Earth Day who is nagging her parents about recycling."

Use all five senses. Laura Coleman of the Memphis Commercial Appeal says reporters covering routine events "can do a better job putting the reader there if they tell the reader what he or she not only would see, but hear, smell, touch and even taste."

Expand your definition of news. Fuson advises that reporters wouldn't be writing as many routine stories if we concentrated more on writing about affairs of the heart rather than affairs of state.

Personify statistics. Reports containing statistics are a classic "DBI" (dull but important) story. Don't let them be dull. Graphics are much more effective than prose at communicating statistics. Find a person, family, town or organization that illustrates the findings in the report. Focus on what the figures show, not on the numbers themselves. Census stories lend themselves well to this approach. Or use the statistics to describe a mythical "typical" person.

Seek out innovation. It's a routine for many statehouse reporters to advance the legislative session with a roundup of the key issues legislative leaders expect to dominate the upcoming session. The Kansas City Times took a different approach one year by examining innovative legislation passed in other states. The paper went against the routine, telling about issues that probably weren't coming up in our state legislatures, but perhaps should be.

Get a jump on your event. You will bring more creativity to the routine story if you start thinking about the challenge before the event. "Work the idea before you go," suggests Kevin McGrath of the Wichita Eagle. "Good stories, and good storytelling, stem from good ideas. One of the best pieces of advice I've seen is to look for the basic human element. Ask yourself and your writer: What's this story really about? A visit by 'Millionaire' is about dreams of striking it rich, or grabbing 15 minutes of fame. A Cinco de Mayo story is usually about family and self-identity. One of my team's writers covered a swim club's year-end exhibition last year and found a story about transitions in life. He covered a business closing and found a story about a woman who refused to have her dream defeated by failure. This stuff's all around, every day, in the things we cover. If we target them mentally before we head out, we're more likely to find a better story once we get there, even if it's only by virtue of changing the focus or theme at the scene." One word of caution: Don't let your advance consideration lock you into a preconceived approach. You still need to gather facts at the event, use your senses there and be ready to follow a path you hadn't planned.

Watch for the surprise. Every routine assignment holds the possibility of a surprise. Be on the lookout for a statement or action outside the routine that makes for an exciting story.