Story Craft

More than a few journalists have dreamed of turning their stories into films. Chicago Tribune features writer Kevin Pang actually did, producing a 90-minute documentary about a troubled chef’s attempt…

As Matt Tullis writes in his accompanying essay, more than a dozen top narrative writers agreed to speak, either by Skype or in person, to his undergraduate journalism class at…

I knew it was going to be a great class the second week of the semester, when Mike Sager told my 11 undergraduate journalism majors about the time he snorted…

In previous books, best-selling author Jonathan Eig profiled baseball legend Lou Gehrig and Chicago gangster Al Capone. But as he set about researching his most recent project, he faced an interesting…

Editor’s Note: Welcome to the newest installment of “Writing the Book,” an occasional Storyboard feature in which journalists turned authors discuss the challenges of creating their work. In this essay,…

Starbucks employee Jannette Navarro and her son, Gavin, were the subjects of a story by New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor. (Reprinted with permission.) Few pieces of journalism — let…

Tom HuangTom Huang, the Sunday and enterprise editor at the Dallas Morning News, offered some good ideas for sharpening storytelling skills during a writing panel at last week’s Asian American…

Bestselling author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean breaks down a semester’s worth of storytelling instruction in a two-hour online video course for Skillshare.com. For $19, you get tips and insight on 14 topics, from…

“The most important element in a good story is conflict. It’s seeing two opposing forces collide with one another.” That’s from Beau Willimon, the showrunner for House of Cards, and he said it at…

In the fall of 2011, I began reporting stories about the aftereffects of globalization on small factory towns in southern Virginia, for the Roanoke Times. For the next three years,…