Great story ideas come by luck but also with the hard work of searching, pre-reporting and thinking. From our archives, here are a few timeless pro tips for idea-mining. Follow the links to longer pieces on story craft. … Read more
Narrative legend Buzz Bissinger, whose books include A Prayer for the City and the No. 1 New York Times best-seller Friday Night Lights, visited his alma mater the Nieman Foundation last week for a long talk … Read more
If you’ve ever spent some time nosing around Storyboard you know we archive everything from interactive narratives to original essays on craft, in which masters such as Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Rick Meyer and Walt Harrington offer tips on developing characters, … Read more
Our bookmarks have been busy lately what with all the good stuff to read and watch and hear. Some of our recent favorites hail from CNN.com, Grantland, the New York Times magazine and Esquire. In case you missed them, here … Read more
Yesterday at SXSW, a fascinating interactive animation by Quebec filmmaker Vincent Morriset called “BLA BLA” won first prize in the Interactive Art category. While we’re not sure that the treatment of an animated protagonist and inkblots and … Read more
Reflections on Tiananmen Square 20 years on. A look at the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons today. A father rolling through an infantile old age as part of a new generation of “Immortals.” Here is a handful of … Read more
When I was little, my mama worked the early shift at the seafood plant. She’d drop me off at my Aunt Janice’s house before dawn and they’d lay me down on a pallet in the living room. Country music played … Read more
This week’s Notable Narrative recounts the murder of Claude Neal by a lynch mob in 1934 and introduces his family, which has been waiting for decades for someone to name the killers and hold them to account. Tampa … Read more
Required Storyboard reading has been light on humor of late, but there’s some wryness mixed in with the sorrow in Justin Heckert’s look at what nature did to Vaughn, Ga. And a vignette about an “atomic banana” adds range to an … Read more
It’s that time of year, where we take a break for a few days from the world of nonfiction storytelling to hit the beach, eat funnel cakes and read really bad fiction. (No way are we going to let a … Read more