There are two main characters in this series: first, the illness itself, which ravaged Norfolk and Plymouth, Va., in 1855. It killed one out of three people in the communities it reached. Its effects form a summary narrative of the … Read more
Seniesa Estrada and her father live in a gang-ridden, poor area of LA. When she’s eight, Seniesa decides she wants to box. It turns out she’s good at it—and that succeeding at it may save both her father and herself. Read more
What is your advice on structuring a story while reporting? You report for structure the same way you report for anything else. When you’re reporting for dramatic narrative, you’re reporting for character, meaning and structure at the same time. What … Read more
Gross’s series is an example of using profile to examine larger social contexts or processes, in this case the college-admissions game. The style is airy, the content more weighty, the mix of which makes the piece both entertaining and substantive. Read more
Newspaper folks talk a lot about getting people into stories. But all too often that means trotting out direct quotes from a variety of sources. True characterization taps an array of techniques that novelists … Read more
Journalists should report the truth. Who would deny it? But such a statement does not get us far enough, for it fails to distinguish nonfiction from other forms of expression. Novelists can reveal great truths about the human condition, and … Read more
Editor’s Note: This essay originally appeared in the Fall 2000 issue of Nieman Reports, the Nieman Foundation’s quarterly magazine. Narrative writing is returning to newspapers. No one has added up the reallocated column-inches to quantify this change, but there are … Read more
The doctor at the Army base had a young corporal as his assistant to keep track of the paperwork. The young man was curious about the doctor’s affairs. He was always asking questions and one morning said, “In … Read more
We’ve heard it to the point of numbness: “Get people into your stories. Tell it in human terms.” Who’s to argue? Yup, human beings are more interesting than paper creeping through a bureaucracy. Yup, real human experiences bring abstractions to … Read more
This essay is based on presentations given in advanced feature writing seminars the author taught at The Washington Post. On Thinking About Intimate Journalism It’s the kiss of death for anyone aspiring to do intimate journalism to think … Read more
