Write Tight!
Tips for Short Writing

By CHIP SCANLAN
Poynter Reporting, Writing, & Editing Group Leader

IDEA

• Move quickly from assignment to budget line.
• Brainstorm the reader's questions.
• Decide on a focus early but being willing to be flexible, to change with the information you report.

FOCUS

• Be ruthless about finding the heart of the story: an effective story has a single dominant impression.
• Address the question, "What's the story really about?" and answer it in one word.
• Ask two questions that keep track of the focus of any story: What's the news? What's the point? They address the reader's concerns: What's new here? What's this story about? Why am I reading this?
• Keep thinking through the entire process: What's this story really about and what are the essentials I must include?

REPORT

• Keep in mind the "iceberg effect". The strength of a story is the mountain of reporting that lies underneath, the interviews, details, understanding that the writer will never see but will infuse your story with power.
• Mine for gold: With short stories you only want the best; the most illustrative anecdote, the most telling detail, the most pungent quote, the most revealing statistic,
• Look for revealing details that put people on the page. The female police officer who wears "size four steel-toe boots." The widow who sprays her dead husband's aftershave on her pillow. "In a good story," says David Finkel of The Washington Post, "a paranoid schizophrenic doesn't just hear imaginary voices, he hears them say, 'Go kill a policeman.' "
• Use the five senses in your reporting and a few others: sense of place, sense of people, sense of time, sense of drama.

ORGANIZE

• "Think 'short' from the beginning. That's a suggestion echoed in The Elements of Style, Strunk & White's indispensable guide: "You raise a pup tent from one sort of vision, a cathedral from another." Staying faithful to an 800-word length will help you jettison irrelevant information and avoid reporting detours that might be interesting but will consume valuable time.
• End it first. Once you settle on a destination, it's easier to plan your route.
• Work the Rubik's Cube. Move, cut, shift the elements of your story.
• Try Rick Bragg's "Five Boxes: approach. Bragg doesn't outline his stories, but he does preach the value of the "five boxes" method of story organization.

1. The first box, the lead, contains the image or detail that draws people in the story.
1. The second box is a "nut graph" that sums up the story.
1. The third box begins with a new image or detail that resembles a lead and precedes the bulk of the narrative.
1. The fourth box contains material that is less compelling but rounds out the story.
1. The fifth, and last, box is the "kicker," an ending featuring a strong quote or image that leaves the reader with a strong emotion.

"Even if you just completely scramble it later on, at least it got you rolling," Bragg says.

DRAFT

• Write early: Find out what you know, what you need to know
• Write the end first. Most reporters concentrate on the lead. When you're writing short, especially, the ending is more important for time management and psychological reasons.
• Find a narrative line
• Put your notes aside before you start to write. "Notes are like velcro," says, Jane Harrigan of the University of New Hampshire. "As you try to skim them, they ensnare you, and pretty soon you can't see the story for the details." Her advice: Repeat over and over, "The story is not in my notes. The story is in my head."

REWRITE

• Raise the bar: is it good enough?
• Murder your darlings
• Cut "like a surgeon," as poet Anne Sexton says. "Down to the bone."
• Select, don't compress: Wholes, not parts
• Is there a beginning, middle and end?
• Is the ending resonant?
• Are the sentences active?
• Can I use punctuation as a tool?
• Role play the reader. Step back and pretend you're reading your story for the first time. Does the lead make you want to keep reading? Does it take you too long to learn what the story is about and why it's important? If not, are you intrigued enough to keep reading anyway? What questions do you have about the story? Are they answered in the order you would logically ask them?