AT LAST
What's the Story?
Trying to keep your teens – or yourself – energized? Here are some tips that can help you leave no good story unturned
by Denise Gamino
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W hen I became a feature writer recently, all the enthusiasm and energy I had as a cub reporter came roaring back. As a beat reporter, I questioned authority. As a feature writer, I question “why?” about anything and everything. I’m thrilled to write the stories that everyone else is ignoring or thinks are too unimportant or silly to mess with. I call it the “leftovers” beat. I’m not big on rulebooks, but I jotted these tips down recently after someone asked me to explain how I found great stories that others overlook.
Finding Stories Right Under Your Nose
• Look at life – and news events – upside down, backwards and sideways. Develop a nonlinear mind.
• Take walks. Explore your world. Really look at and listen to the things and people you pass. Remember, there’s no news in a newsroom.
• Question the obvious.
• Recapture the curiosity you had when you were 3 years old. Everything was examined with a “why” and “how” then. Don’t give that up.
• Take up a new hobby. Stretch your known world and meet new people and learn new things. It will strengthen your ability to be open to new things.
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Really look at and listen to the things and people you pass. Remember, there's no news in a newsroom. |
• Small is beautiful. Think small, it’s more universal than big. Readers can identify with a person or a thing. Writing about the human condition doesn’t mean interviewing an army of people.
• Always keep your reporter’s eyes and ears open. Everything in life is a story. Try to write a little something every day on a person, place or thing you noticed. Don’t sleepwalk through life.
• Follow people’s passion. Everyone has something they are passionate about. Draw that out of people. There’s an unsung maverick around every corner.
• Be humble. Arrogance inhibits curiosity. Blessed are the nobodies, for theirs is the kingdom of quality features. How about that guy on CBS who points a finger at a phone book every week and finds a story?
• Avoid following and thinking like the pack. Look for something absurd or obscure in every situation.
• Keep a list of random thoughts, observations and story ideas. Sometimes the best ideas are fleeting, and they never revisit.
• Read a variety of things. Go to the library and pay attention to what’s on the “Recent Books” shelf. Look at magazines, newsletters, bulletin boards, signs, graffiti, anything containing the alphabet.
• Find new twists to boring stories. Challenge yourself to write in a new way.
• Have fun with your work. Your joy and passion will automatically transfer to your stories. Really.
• Ask dumb questions. You get interesting answers.
• Ask to see things. If you go to the theater or a museum and find something particularly interesting, it’s a story. Others will think so too.
• Make new friends. Sometimes, the best conversations are in line at the grocery store or on the plane or in a line. You never know who you’re going to meet, and you never know how interesting their world is.
Denise Gamino is an award-winning reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. She gave up a long career as an investigative reporter to jump to feature writing four years ago and has never looked back. She’s trying to make up for all those years of writing about VIPs by discovering stories of unsung mavericks and overlooked places. She recently wrote about a giant pile of dirt and President Bush’s soft spot for a bald spot. |