Write Like a Storyteller

—By John Larson

© 2011, 2012 John Larson

 

 

 

 

Have you ever attended a class in which a teacher dutifully lists names, facts, equations, or dates but fails to interest you? The information never connects in any meaningful way? Can you remember walking out of that class, relieved to be out in the fresh air?

At its worst, reporting is similar to that lecture. It fills the air with important sounding names and facts, but fails to make them matter very much. Storytelling, on the other hand, is a bit like walking out into the fresh air—it feels natural, interesting, and a little like recess. When a great story begins, your senses come alive, as if an adventure lies ahead of you.

Great reporting borrows from the best of both of these worlds—reporting important truths and revealing this information in interesting, powerful stories. Learning to write like a storyteller can help any journalist.

An important first step is to understand that although a reporter learns facts, storytellers pay attention to what they experience while learning those facts, and what the people in their stories are experiencing. They pay attention to what they see, hear, and feel. This is important in any form of journalism—newspaper, magazine, radio, blog—but is especially important in video journalism.

TRANSMITTING THE EXPERIENCE

You know by now that good video storytelling shares, or transmits, an experience. It gives viewers a sense that they are there. You see, hear, and experience a story. Good storytellers also are aware their own experiences can be powerful tools to help tell stronger stories.

Why choose storytelling over other forms of communicating information? The advantage of sharing experience and information through video storytelling is that it takes advantage of our senses. People are hardwired to be curious about what they see, and intrigued by what they hear. It is less like the lecture mentioned previously and more like going out for recess. If journalists could capture smell, taste, or touch in order to tell a more powerful story, we certainly would—but that is for some future medium. Much is written about the importance of pictures and sound, but they are important only because they mimic the way your viewer experiences the world. Use this to your advantage. Ignore it, and your stories will falter. How do you do this? Some of the ways follow.

BOX 10.1    JOHN LARSON, NETWORK CORRESPONDENT

Be a Tour Guide

You can think of this as the “tour guide” school of storytelling and writing for video. Think of the last time you took a guided tour. It might have been in a museum, an historic district, or a national park. Along the way, you may have discovered that the best tour guides are great storytellers. They lead you up to each revelation and help you pay attention.

A tour guide might say, for example “On your left is the Washington Monument. Notice the three birds sitting on the very top edge? The monument is 555 feet high, the cornerstone was laid in 1848, but it took 40 years before the first person ever set foot inside.” While the tour guide says this, everyone looks at the monument, wondering, “Why did it take so long?” The tour guide might then tell a deeper story: “You can’t see it from here, but inside the monument, buried in the walls, are 193 special stones, each one different, each one hand-crafted, each one a memorial stone made with the soil of one of the nation’s 50 states. The monument’s builders thought the soil of every state seemed a good way to say ‘thank you’ to the man who gave birth to a nation. What do you think?”

Take your audience by the hand and walk them into the story. Use your words to verbally show them around; point out the pictures and sounds that are important. Help them focus and understand what they see. And then, while they watch, tell deeper stories.

This is sometimes more difficult than it sounds. Reporters are often so busy trying to cram as many facts as they can into a story, they forget to transmit their experience—what they saw, heard, and felt. They forget how their audience is hardwired to experience the world. They deprive their audience the fun of experiencing a story.

Use “Wows!”—The Things That Turn You On

The way you experience a story—the things that intrigue you and bore you—are excellent hints about how your audience might experience a story, and how you might construct your story. Don’t underestimate this. Pay close attention to your own reactions. This is the beginning of transmitting an experience—your experience—realizing your reactions are often similar to your viewers’.

For example, pay attention to what happened when you were first introduced to a story. What bored you or interested you? What made you laugh, moved you, or made you say, “Wow!”

Say your assignment is to write a story about a factory that was closed, the jobs exported overseas. You’ve done your research and know the facts: the number of jobs that were lost, the cost to the local economy, and so on. You meet a company supervisor at the shuttered plant. He takes you into the factory and you are immediately struck by the immensity of it—the huge, silent room, silent machines, assembly lines, and workbenches. You think, “Holy *&!$#!” I call these moments “wows.” Good writers notice wows and write to them. When I experienced this in a shuttered pulp mill in Washington State, I wrote it this way,

“The first thing you notice about the ATT-Rayonier Plant—is the silence.”

Let Your Audience Experience the Wows

Once you’ve identified a wow, make sure you shoot it. Take video as you walk through the door that reveals how huge, empty, and silent the factory is. You need video of the empty workbenches, and the work gloves left behind. Then, write to it. Allow several long moments of silence so the audience can “look around,” appreciate the emptiness, and experience the same sense of loss that you did. This requires you to stop talking for a moment, and let the shot transmit an experience. If you do, viewers will experience the moment much as you did.

Moments

The wow you just experienced and recorded is called a “moment.” Moments are wonderful bits of reality, full of meaning. Moments often make the best television because, when used properly, they take advantage of our hardwiring, the way we experience the world. You will encounter moments during the course of shooting and gathering a story. Sometimes they happen right in front of you; other times they happen during an interview.

GREAT MOMENTS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS Unexpected Moments are often powerful, funny, poignant, and urgent precisely because you don’t see them coming. For example, imagine you are interviewing a farmer about the tightening economics of small farms. He is being forced to sell his family’s farm. He interrupts the interview to yell across the yard, “Sarah! Grab your daddy’s saddle! Tomorrow they’ll take everything not nailed to the barn floor.” This is a moment. It helps you appreciate more about what is happening than whatever he was telling you about before the interruption.

ONE THOUGHT ABOUT FIELD TEAMWORK If you’re part of a team, capturing moments in the field requires the reporter/producer and photographer to work together. It means the reporter cannot barge into a situation, talking over the possible moments that would occur were he or she less disruptive. It means a reporter has to think and act like a good photographer—looking for powerful moments, sounds, and pictures. It means the photographer and soundperson have to think like storytellers. They need to be flexible, intuitive, and fast on their feet. They need to value moments more than perfectly lit or framed shots.

WRITING YOUR FIRST SENTENCE

Once you return from shooting your story in the field, if you have not already started writing (I recommend you begin writing early in the day whenever possible, even before your news gathering is complete), you have to sit down and write. The most daunting challenge in writing a short story for broadcast is often (no surprise here) the first sentence. Ideally, the first sentence should impart critical information, attract the listener, and reflect the direction or tone that you are about to take. It can act as a signpost—giving the viewer a sense of where the story is going, and how it might end. Sounds like a lot to accomplish in a first sentence, doesn’t it? Frankly, figuring all this out before you start writing is often overwhelming. Want writer’s block? Try making your first sentence perfect.

If you have trouble getting started, here are two thoughts. The first is courtesy of a friend and Pulitzer Prize winner Howard Weaver of McClatchy Newspapers:

Lower your expectations: That’s right. Even the best writers do it. When you’re stuck trying to write something really good, sometimes it helps to risk writing something bad. Lighten up, demand less of yourself, and start writing. Writing will often get your creative juices flowing and lead to something better. At least it will get you going. This doesn’t mean you should be lazy. It means that getting going is an important part of the process.

 

Another writer’s advice for beating the first sentence block is a bit more colorful:

 

Just vomit: “Throw up” your immediate ideas on the page. Don’t edit yourself before you start. Just get it out. Purge. Again, just writing something down will often get you going. Then, you’ll be ready to begin considering how to tell the rest of your story.

THE THREE HORSES—STORYTELLING TOOLS FOR VIDEO STORIES

When it comes to writing for video, I believe there are three “great horses”—storytelling tools or engines that you must master if you want to tell powerful video stories. These horses are powerful. But before you “saddle up,” try this exercise: Think of a great movie, or even a great novel, something you really loved. Can you remember the reasons you liked it so much? It probably had strong characters—people who interested you because of what you discovered about them or what they did. It probably had a strong plot line: a mystery, a drama, or a sequence of events that evolved and led to a satisfactory ending. The movie also likely surprised you in many ways: It took you someplace you were not expecting to go, things happened that you didn’t anticipate, or people said things that you didn’t see coming.

These elements are storytelling engines—tools that make story lines compelling and meaningful. I’ve found that it does not matter if your story is two minutes long or two hours, these horses remain important. I call them “horses” because I’ve found they have their own momentum—energy I can use while reporting or “telling” stories. The three great horses are simple: surprise, quest, and character. All three are different, but you can easily learn how to recognize them, capture them, and write to them.

FIRST HORSE: SURPRISE

At Dateline NBC, we called surprises “reveals.” For example, I once wrote a story about a television anchor in California who was an alcoholic. Unable to quit drinking, his life dramatically unraveled—he lost his wife, his friends, and his health—all while being on the air every day. Eventually, he lost his job, too. We interviewed him, broke, bloated, and in denial, during the final stages of his decline. It was clear he wasn’t going to make it. His liver was damaged, and his doctors said he had only weeks left to live. Several months after our interview, we received a phone call. A friend had found him on the floor of his empty apartment. I wrote the story something like this:

The anchor’s survival was a surprise. Everyone watching the story was expecting him to die. His survival and his appearance on camera produced a “wow.” It was something I purposely held back while reporting our story, so the audience could appreciate how desperate his situation was before his collapse and enjoy the same sense of surprise and victory I experienced when I first saw the recovered alcoholic with his fresh, lean face—healthy and strong after months of sobriety. Imagine if I had just reported the facts. It would have been something like this: “A former newsman is fine and recovering tonight in a local hospital. A friend said he had been drinking too much.” That may be an accurate report, but not much of a story.

Here’s the Windup, and the Pitch

The key to writing for surprises is to remember that all surprises require a setup. You have to prepare your audience to expect one thing: only to be surprised by another. It is a lot like telling a joke. A joke first makes you think about one thing and then delivers an unexpected punch line. It is always done in that order. Think of the primitive childhood joke,

The punch line always comes at the end. It is never, “Chickens get to the other side by crossing the road.”

Likewise, a surprise is always delivered at the very end of a deliberate sentence, or sequence of sentences. To do this, you must first recognize the parts of the story that surprise you—a moment, a comment from an interview, a development—and then, set up your surprise with a deliberate sequence of fact. This will often require you to delay and hold back some information until the best stage has been set to deliver your surprise. This does not mean that you should mislead your audience on factual matters. It simply requires you to recognize the natural surprises that happen and allow them to exist in your storytelling. Warning: Reporters have difficulty holding back information. Storytellers seem to do it naturally.

The Audiences’ Right Not to Know

Using surprise properly turns one journalism standard on its head. As journalists we know it is essential to our democracy that people be informed. So, we work to protect the “public’s right to know.” However, a storyteller changes this a little. A storyteller knows that it is the public’s right not to know until the best possible moment.

Surprise and the Setup

I once wrote a story about a small town in which the mayor had a phony, prank parking meter. There were three surprises in the story:

 

  1. There was only one parking meter in the entire town.

  2. The meter was movable.

  3. The person behind the joke was the mayor.

 

The mayor would take the parking meter up and down the street and “ticket” his friend’s cars. But of course, I didn’t tell the story that way; I told it like this:

Three Surprises and Three Setups

Notice how all three surprises in the previous story come at the end of a setup.

FIRST Surprise: THERE IS ONLY ONE METER. THE SETUP NARRATION: That’s why it kind of surprised everyone when a stranger from the big city showed up. (Reveal meter here) One … parking meter. The only meter in 7 thousand 200 square miles. (The viewer is expecting us to introduce a person here, not a parking meter.)

SECOND SURPRISE: THE METER IS MOVABLE. THE SETUP NARRATION: Tom knows most out-of-towners aren’t dumb enough to fall for the parking meter. (Car passes meter) SOT: “AW, HE’S GONNA TRY TO GO AROUND, AW SHOOT! YOU SEE

THERE’S A TYPICAL RESPONSE.” NARRATION: But you see, they don’t have to be. (They roll meter down the sidewalk to the parked car) (The viewer here is expecting the out-of-towner to successfully avoid the meter.)

THIRD SURPRISE: THE PERSON bEHIND THE JOKE WAS THE MAYOR. THE SETUP NARRATION: Now you’d think sooner or later someone would get sick of it all and complain about Tom’s parking meter to the mayor. SOT: “DON’T THINK IT WOULD DO THEM ANY GOOD. (LARSON: “HOW’S THAT?”) “‘CUZ I’M THE MAYOR.” (The viewer is expecting Tom to explain that people do complain to the mayor.)

Experience Surprise

Whenever possible, it is important to allow your audience to experience the surprise instead of just reporting the surprise to them. This means the best surprises are delivered by the field video and audio, not by a reporter’s narrated track. Notice in the previous story that all three surprises are never reported, but are visually demonstrated.

I don’t say, “In this entire town they have only one parking meter.” Instead, I say, “That’s why it kind of surprised everyone when a stranger from the big city showed up.” Next, I let the video reveal the one parking meter.

For the surprise that the meter moves, I don’t say, “The meter moves.” Instead, I say, “But you see, they don’t have to be.” Then the video reveals for the first time that the meter moves.

Last, instead of saying “The man behind the prank is the mayor of the town” I write, “Now you’d think sooner or later someone would get sick of it all and complain about Tom’s parking meter to the mayor.” And then I let the interview reveal it with the SOT: “DON’T THINK IT WOULD DO THEM ANY GOOD.” (LARSON: “HOW’S THAT?”) “‘CUZ I’M THE MAYOR.”

Surprise Changes the Way You Gather News

Surprises are moments or wows that you don’t expect. Once you start trying to capture surprises on camera you must be patient and wait for them. You also must be able to anticipate where the surprises might occur, and make sure your camera is rolling and your audio is strong. Last, you need to be very flexible. Surprises frequently don’t happen where you think they will. A good storyteller becomes adept at rewriting stories to include unexpected surprises.

A Note about Rhythm

Notice how the writing in the parking meter story is often interrupted by natural sound and interviews. Almost every sentence is followed by a break for sound. Whereas every story does not require this many breaks, every good story has its own rhythm. Just like a song, a good narrated video story has a beat—a cadence of words and sentences that you can almost tap your foot to. Preachers know this: When a good preacher gets going, his or her congregation can often clap their hands to the rhythm of the preacher’s delivery. Lawyers trying to sway a jury know it, too. The late Johnnie Cochran, famous lawyer in the OJ Simpson trial, kept repeating his message about the bloody glove, and how it didn’t fit Simpson’s hand: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit. If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

When you want your story to accelerate, and your viewers’ attention to intensify, shorten your sentences and/or increase the regularity of your breaks for natural sound and sound bites. If you want to slow it down, do the opposite.

SECOND HORSE: QUEST

The second horse is “quest.” It is a lot like plot, but simpler and more specific. Quest consists of “someone trying to get something done.”

Example: Let’s say you’ve been assigned to a story about a city councilman who changed his vote on a zoning ordinance, supporting a developer’s plan to knock down some aging but popular retail stores. While you wait to interview the councilman, you notice his secretary’s phone is ringing constantly, with many constituents complaining about the councilman’s vote. The secretary explains, “The councilman is on the line; may I have your name and he’ll get back to you.” With each new call, the secretary writes out the details of the complaint, and then spikes the note on a rapidly growing stack of messages. She is clearly overwhelmed by the volume of phone calls. Finally, you get a chance to enter the councilman’s office. He, initially on the phone, hangs up to do an interview with you.

A straight news report might write it this way:

Storytelling Using Quest

There is nothing wrong with straight reporting, but it does not take advantage of the “pull” of a good story. Using storytelling quest, or “someone trying to get something done,” completely changes whose “voice” carries the story. It requires you to focus at least some of your report on one person. For example, the previous report might be told like this:

Finding the Quest

Remember, quest is simply “someone trying to get something done.” In the previous example, the secretary’s quest is simple: “Dana the secretary is trying to answer the phones and write down all the complaints following last night’s council vote.” Most reporters would ignore the secretary. Storytellers would not. You can use Dana’s experience to draw in the viewer and drive home the contentiousness of the vote. In the process, the secretary’s quest shows us how the councilman is partially shielded from his actions, and we learn how a local democracy works.

If you look for them, small personal quests are often all around you. They are literally “in your way.” A secretary answering calls, a janitor sweeping up after a demonstration, a police officer trying to call in the details of a tragic accident, a fire victim trying to find out if anyone has found her missing pet—all are quests worth consideration.

Ask yourself, could this small quest demonstrate my larger story in an interesting or powerful way? Can I use this quest to share other important facts of the story? If the answers are yes, try using it.

Quest Changes News Gathering

Once a storyteller decides to follow someone’s quest, everything changes. The story’s focus changes. What the reporter and photographer choose to photograph changes. Suddenly, recording a secretary’s phone call may be more important than shooting an exterior of the council building. The interview questions change as well. Instead of asking the councilman why he voted the way he did, you’re asking the secretary, “What time did you come into work? Was the phone ringing? Have you eaten lunch yet?”

THIRD HORSE: CHARACTER

My third horse is character. There are people in all good stories; the challenge is to find the right details about those people, their life, or their quest to make them meaningful and memorable. This is what I call finding character. Talking heads do not automatically have character; you need to find it. Sometimes, compelling video provides details that make someone memorable. Other times, it is a personal fact or a special quote that makes him or her memorable.

Telling Details

One of the most important lessons a journalist can learn is that building character into a story requires a search for powerful details. “Telling” details can be the contents of a wallet, a favorite nickname, an heirloom, a recurring dream, a child who passed away, the color of a car, anything. In order for details to be telling, they need to be symbolic of something larger: the quality of a life, the context of a struggle, the courage or fear of a character, and so on. How will you know if a detail is telling? It will strike you, move you emotionally, surprise you, or add depth and new dimension to the story.

For example, Chip Scanlan, a fine reporter, writer, and professor at the Poynter Institute in Florida, was once given an assignment to write about smoking and cancer for the St. Petersburg Times. He interviewed the widow of a cigarette smoker. Her name was Marie. Chip asked all the regular questions but kept listening for details that might bring Marie or her loss into clearer focus. If she told Chip that she missed her husband, Chip would ask deeper questions like, “When do you miss him most?” “Is there a time of day or night when it is especially difficult?” Eventually, he asked for a tour of Marie’s house. As they stood in the master bedroom Marie said, “Would you believe it? At night, I sprinkle his aftershave on my pillow. Just to feel close to him.”

This is a powerful detail. It says much about the wife, her love, and her loss. Somehow, it even tells us about her husband. Details like this, however, do not come easily. Chip was patient. As he tells it,

I was speechless. I couldn’t believe she would tell a stranger such an intimate detail. I felt compelled to ask her if I could use it my story. Yes, she said. But the quote haunted me. I prided myself on being the kind of reporter that people would trust enough to share their lives, but to be honest, I also felt protective when they did so. After I drafted the story, I called Marie back, and once again asked if I could use the quote. Yes, she said. And then just before the story was ready to go to press, I called her a third time.

Notice that Scanlan immediately sensed the personal nature and power of this telling comment. Yet instead of rushing it to print, he asked her three times if she wanted him to withhold it. This not only tells you a lot about who Chip Scanlan is, but also something about the kind of people strong storytellers often are—thoughtful, caring, intuitive, engaged. People with powerful personal details trust such reporters more than they do reporters who seem to be “in it for themselves.”

Bottom line: People fascinate me, and the trappings of their lives are windows into their inner lives, which is what I’ve always been after as a reporter and writer.

TIPS FOR WRITING STRONG STORIES

Physician, Heal Thyself

I hope you will have many good teachers. In writing, however, only one teacher will watch your every step and stay with you throughout your career—you. Journalism is a worldwide craft often practiced by people in small rooms with small desks. In other words, although your work will take you out into the world, you often might feel isolated when it comes to improving your craft. Reach outside your immediate environment. Seek out the exciting work of other journalists around the country and around the world. Educate yourself with examples you like. Stay enthused.

The “Rip It Off” School of Journalism

It sounds awful, but I first learned to write by ripping people off. I would read good writing and then try to steal it. Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t steal quotes or crib observations. I didn’t plagiarize. (Plagiarism is a wonderfully efficient way to find a new career in the fast-food industry.) No, I’d notice how other people told their stories, and then try to use their techniques. I’d try to write like John McPhee of The New Yorker magazine one month. Another month, I’d try to write like John Hart of NBC News. I never wound up writing much like either of them, but I would try their use of detail, their sense of pace, their choice of subject, and I improved in the process. I made them my heroes.

Think Heroes: Bono, Mother Teresa, Tiger Woods

Great writing is like great music, political activism, or sport. It requires heroes.

Every good writer has heroes. Find yours. Find writers who make you curious, angry, sad, or laugh out loud. Then, figure out how they did it.

Years ago, I discovered the work of John McPhee. He had a powerful, intelligent curiosity. He would gather details, arrange them in a special order, and create a total effect that would be greater than the sum of the individual parts. I learned from McPhee how a well-chosen fact could be wonderful, humorous, and striking.

John Hart was an NBC News correspondent who had a way of using telling details as metaphors. He’d write international new stories full of powerful details. I remember his story of the violence in Northern Ireland between the Catholics and the Protestants. He chose to mention a teenaged girl who had been attacked. Her attackers, full of religious righteousness, had carved the girl’s face with a knife. The scar, Hart observed, “was in the shape of the Cross.”

Strong Stories Are the Work of Strong Storytellers

I was working in a small television station in Alaska and part of my first reporting job was to write down what happened on NBC Nightly News every night. The program had many strong writers and reporters back then: Tom Petit, Tom Brokaw, Ken Bodie, John Hart, Judy Woodruff, Roger Mudd. I noticed some reports were very professional, but not very interesting. I noticed other reports were professional and interesting—informative and moving. The same reporters, regardless of the subject, consistently did the best stories. It didn’t matter if it was a story about the White House, a flood in the Midwest, a protest, or a riot—the best reporters moved from one subject to another and made it compelling. An assignment manager once told me, “There are no bad stories, only bad reporters.” He was wrong. (I thought to myself, “There are no bad stories, only unimaginative assignment managers.”) There are plenty of bad stories—pointless, unimportant, unworthy of our attention. However, the assignment manager was right about one thing: A strong reporter consistently tells powerful stories, whereas weak reporters do not.

Challenge Yourself

When I was a reporter in Seattle, I learned the highest broadcast journalism award was the Columbia-DuPont Baton—given to broadcast journalists around the world by Columbia University, the same institution behind the Pulitzer Prize. Only the best are recognized. So, I wrote to Columbia for a copy of that year’s winners, explaining that I was “teaching a course on excellence in journalism.”

A box of winning stories arrived around Christmas each year. I pored over them. I was teaching a course, but there was only one student enrolled—me. I cut out a picture of the Baton and hung it in my closet so I would see it every morning when I dressed. I’d say to myself, “Somewhere a reporter is doing work worthy of the DuPont. What can I do today to make it be me?” It took a few years, but eventually I won a DuPont for an investigation of the insurance industry. A few years later, I won another. But my long journey to the award ceremonies really began back in Seattle, opening that box of tapes each year and studying the finest work the world had to offer, all by myself.

At the awards ceremony in New York, I confessed my deception to the DuPont director, the woman whom I had written to years earlier and who had faithfully sent me the tapes each year. She laughed, her eyes lit up, and she said, “Obviously, the course was a complete success.”

Concluding Thoughts

Always remember, reporting and storytelling require different tool sets. A reporter works on sources, gathering information and getting it right. A storyteller works on transmitting an experience in a powerful and meaningful way. When strong reporting and strong storytelling converge, the result is great journalism—work capable of both informing and moving its audience.

Like great reporting, great storytelling demands that we challenge ourselves and dig deep. We have to care about the individuals we encounter and listen for the deeper resonances of their stories. Storytellers must “show” their stories, instead of just “report” their stories. They must involve viewers with powerful pictures, sounds, and thoughts. To do this, all the tools of the medium—video cameras, microphones, writing, editing, and your own passion—must be engaged and in sync.

The payoff is twofold. You become the best journalist you can be, usually moving ahead of the less imaginative reporters working around you. More important, your work will help people care about their world and bring people together with meaningful information.

SUMMARY

The best stories and storytellers transmit experience. In a sense we are “tour guides,” who take our audience by the hand and walk them into and through the story. Show them around; point out the pictures and sounds that matter most. Help them focus and understand what they are seeing. And then tell them deeper stories while they watch.

Writing a compelling story can be difficult. An even more daunting challenge can be writing the first sentence. If you have trouble starting your story, demand less of yourself and begin to write. Often the simple act of writing will lead you to something better. Get something down on the page, even if it fails to meet your standards. You can polish it later.

Powerful video stories require that you use effective storytelling tools, engines that make stories compelling and meaningful. Three of the most important tools are the three horses: surprise, quest, and character.

Surprises are the unexpected elements in a story, the U-turn that helps elevate a story from routine to exceptional. Surprises require a setup. You prepare the audience to expect one thing, only to deliver something different, always in that order—much like the unexpected punch line to a joke. You delay and hold back some information until the stage is set to deliver your surprise. Surprises can occur multiple times in stories, and the best are delivered by the field video and audio, rather than a reporter’s narrated track. Reporters find it difficult to hold back information. Storytellers do it naturally.

Another important tool is quest. It is similar to plot in that it consists of “someone trying to get something done,” often against opposition. Showing a person’s effort to achieve a goal gives storytellers a way to draw in the viewer, to drive home the meaning and context of events. Quests can be something as small as a fire victim trying to find her missing pet, or a rancher trying to move horses away from an approaching wildfire. The key is to use even small quests to demonstrate the larger story in an interesting or powerful way.

A third important tool is character. All good stories involve people, so the challenge is to find the telling details about the people in your stories, their lives, or their dreams, goals, and hopes. Compelling video can help reveal character and make someone memorable. Even small things like an heirloom or the sound of a voice can be powerful details, provided they symbolize larger meaning, such as the influence of a grandparent, or the ways in which the blind “see” through sound. Other times, you might use a personal fact or a special quote to help illuminate character. You will know the detail is “telling” if it strikes you, moves you emotionally, surprises you, or adds depth and new dimension to the story.

As you learn to write as a storyteller, you will be the only teacher who will watch your every step and stay with you for your entire career. You can learn new writing approaches by seeking out the work of journalists whose writing you admire. Educate yourself by studying their examples and even imitating their style as you begin your writing career. This doesn’t mean you should plagiarize, but that you should notice and practice how other people tell their stories, and then try to use their techniques. Find writing heroes; absorb and analyze their work as you begin to develop your own unique style.

No one ever perfects writing or storytelling. We only improve our skills and become better at our jobs through observation, practice, and long experience. It’s fun and rewarding, even if it takes us the rest of our lives to master.

DISCUSSION

  1. Why is it important to transmit a sense of experience in your video stories?

  2. What is meant by the tour guide school of writing for video?

  3. Why is writing the first sentence of your story so challenging? How does John Larson suggest you solve the problem?

  4. John Larson speaks of the “three great horses”—the storytelling tools—which every storytelling reporter must master. Discuss the use of each tool from the perspective of (a) traditional journalism, as it is typically practiced in print media and (b) by a few notable storytellers in television and on the web. What qualities do these horses lend the storytelling process?

  5. How do you set up surprises in stories?

  6. Why do you delay surprises in stories?

  7. Describe how storytelling reporters can use surprises, telling details, and memorable moments as little golden nuggets to keep the viewer interested as the story unfolds.

  8. Some storytellers equate surprises in stories with the layers of an onion. Explain how you can use their insight in your own storytelling.

  9. Why is it more important to let viewers experience the surprise in field video and audio instead of just reporting the surprise to them?

10. How does the search for surprises change the way you gather news?

11. Define quest and explain its role in the storytelling process.

12. Define and discuss the differences in writing and story structure between the straight news script in this chapter about BrightCity’s L Street vote, and the script that emphasizes storytelling quest.

13. You can find people pursuing quest in many activities. Name ten newsworthy situations that involve quest and specify the nature of the quest in each instance.

14. Define character and explain why it’s important to find the small, telling details about a person’s character, life, or quest to make your stories and characters memorable.

15. Describe the steps a storyteller can take to create a lifelong system of continuing education as a writer.

 

EXERCISES

  1. Obtain some of John Larson’s stories (shot with photographer Mark Morache), which are available from www.nppa.org/professional_development/self-training_resources/AV_library/tv.html. View the stories and review Larson’s and Moraches’s advice regarding storytelling and teamwork. Write a two-page, double-spaced summation of your findings.

  2. Select five newspaper stories. Read them closely to absorb important information about each story. Next, follow the advice for how to write a compelling lead sentence for each story you chose. First, review examples of straight news scripts and storytelling scripts in this chapter. Follow the advice to “lower your expectations” for your opening sentences and “throw up” your immediate ideas on the page rather than edit yourself before you start. Finally, write the most powerful lead sentences you can for each of the stories you chose.

  3. In your everyday interactions with people, begin to recognize when you feel something about what they say or do. It may be the way an elderly widow wipes her kitchen table clean repeatedly, or how a person walks, or how he or she unself-consciously sings to himself or herself. Look for the larger meaning in these behaviors; how are they symbols you can incorporate in your stories to address larger issues?

  4. Study the parking meter script in this chapter and view the story (see exercise 1). Identify the three surprises in the story and explain how each surprise is set up. In what way are the three surprises revealed through video? Interviews? Other audio? Reporter narration?

  5. Watch a local television newscast. Identify how many stories do, or could, emphasize quest: someone trying to get something done. Describe what force or forces in each story oppose the story subject’s efforts to accomplish a goal.

  6. Write two stories about the same subject: (1) a straight news report; (2) the same subject but told as a story that emphasizes someone’s quest for a goal. Review the city council story in this chapter before you begin.

  7. Read the work of authors and journalists whose writing you admire. Make a list of telling details that appear in their writing and describe how the writers use these details as symbolism of something larger. Review the sections “The Third Horse: Character” and “Telling Details” before you begin.

  8. Create a lifelong plan for ongoing education as a writer committed to developing and perfecting a unique and compelling storytelling style. Review the section “Physician, Heal Thyself” before you begin.

  9. Describe in detail the tour guide philosophy of writing for video, as described in this chapter.

10. Watch a television newscast and read the first section of your local newspaper. For each medium, describe the stories that (a) moved you or made you laugh; (b) made you say “Wow!” In each instance, describe the story elements that influenced your reaction(s). Next, describe how you might share such moments with your audience in a video story.

11. Describe the qualities that define moments. How do moments differ from telling details?