You know intuitively what a story is. Ever since you were old enough to speak, you have been telling stories and listening to stories. As soon as you could, you began reading them-mostly children’s fiction at first, then factual stories as you grew older and began to read school books, magazines, and newspapers.
So you’ve been conditioned all your life to recognize stories. But when it comes to analyzing the components or putting together a story yourself how well do you fare? Can you dash it off as quickly as you can tell it to a friend? Or do you freeze when you sit down at the typewriter?
If you are a would-be editor who freezes, chances are you have one or more of these problems
- You don’t have all the necessary facts. You can’t supply the specific who, what, where, when, why, and how that are the essential ingredients of every story.
- You’re a poor typist, and you’re thinking less about the story than about where to put your fingers.
- You have no clear picture of the person you are addressing (as you do when telling a story face-to-face). You can’t identify his interests.
- You don’t understand fully enough the concept of “story.”
Each point is important. Reporters always should have more information than they think necessary. They also must know what is important to the audience and have enough typing skill that manual awkwardness won’t interfere with clear thinking. But above all reporters must have a good idea of what constitutes a story.
True, not all news appears in story form. Every newspaper publishes a lot of information as statistics or lists-stock market reports, weather readings, football and baseball standings, lists of births and divorces. News broadcasters, having less time than the newspaper has space, devote less attention to lists of names and numbers, but they too deal with a certain amount of non story material. News of this kind, however, can be gathered and recorded by anyone, regardless of talent or training. The reporter who expects to be more than a clerk must learn to put news in story form.
