Mary Ann adds FELON, 412 words, a close-up snapshot of what we do:

FELON, Anne Saker, Oregonian

This summer, Pauline Sue Brooks became a felon.
Then she gave birth to a daughter.
On Monday, she went to prison.
On Wednesday, she turns 16.
Brooks of Southeast Portland received a five-year sentence in Multnomah County Circuit Court for a gang-related shooting last November in which Brooks fired a gun into the chest of a 13-year-old girl. Her long hair knotted on top of her head, her body clad in shapeless black sweats, Brooks faced Circuit Judge Alicia Fuchs to accept a punishment negotiated with the district attorney.
When Fuchs asked Brooks if she had anything to say, Brooks’ head fell backward. When she looked at the judge again, her voice was full of tears. “I just want to say, it’s really hard,” she said. “The biggest problem is leaving my daughter.”
But Brooks said she knew she had to do her time “because of what I chose to do,” and, “I’m going to make the best out of a bad situation.” “That’s the only thing you can do,” Fuchs replied softly. “There are a lot of ways that you will be a mother to this child.”
In the gallery of Courtroom 324, a woman cradled the dark-haired 2-month-old baby. After the sentencing, the woman declined to speak about Brooks or herself.

Brooks originally was charged with attempted murder for shooting Brittany Cruz, 13, on Nov. 12 with what police described as a small-caliber pistol.
Police summoned to Southeast 82nd Avenue and Foster Road that night found Cruz suffering a gunshot wound. Witnesses told police that two groups of girls had met, one group asked the other about its gang ties, and Brooks and Cruz argued. Then Brooks pulled out the gun and shot Cruz.
Cruz is recovering from her injuries. The district attorney wanted Brooks to testify against the man police say gave her the gun, Jose Ramon Zavala-Leon, 24.
Police said he was a member of the Latino gang Southside Trece. Brooks agreed, and she pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of attempted first-degree assault with a firearm on June 2.
A week later, Zavala-Leon committed suicide at his home in Wood Village.
Monday, as the paperwork for her sentencing was completed, Brooks looked over at prosecutor Rod Underhill, who said, “Good luck.” She nodded.
Her lawyer, Kathy Berger, touched her on the shoulder. Brooks stood for a deputy to fasten the handcuffs.
As he led her out, Brooks looked at the woman holding her daughter, and said, “Bye.”

Folks: Analysis of FELON.
This piece uses what I call the classic “wedding cake” structure.
Imagine a three-tiered wedding cake, smallest tier on top, next tier down a bit broader, and the third tier, broader still.
Tier I tells the Whole Story in Outline: 

This summer, Pauline Sue Brooks became a felon.

Then she gave birth to a daughter.

On Monday, she went to prison.

On Wednesday, she turns 16.

(End Tier I:  Tells the whole in a sketch-like way that whets appetite for more explanation. Dramatic overview of the whole piece. Notice, structurally, that the four facts about Pauline above come in descending order, or reverse hierarchy: 1.) fact that she is a FELON is the largest piece in the hierarchy of facts. Anyone could be a felon. All the women in women’s prisons are felons. 2.) fact that she GAVE BIRTH serves to heighten the drama of her being a felon –hey – what about the baby?! This level in the descending hierarchy separates out Pauline from all the other female felons in the universe…. 3.) Fact that she WENT TO PRISON serves to heighten the drama again – now she is not only a felon, but a felon with a baby, and a felon who this week was sent off to prison. This separates her even further from the larger population of female felons, and female felons who also are news mothers (emotional hit:  so what’s to become of the baby, here?  4.) Fact that she TURNS 16 is the classic punchline. OMG! All that, and she is only 15 years old (not yet turned 16 when the story runs). 

BEGIN TIER II: Tells the broader story that the first tier suggests – in this case, a classic court hearing story, that would be on anyone’s daily schedule:

Brooks of Southeast Portland received a five-year sentence in Multnomah County Circuit Court for a gang-related shooting last November in which Brooks fired a gun into the chest of a 13-year-old girl.

Her long hair knotted on top of her head, her body clad in shapeless black sweats, Brooks faced Circuit Judge Alicia Fuchs to accept a punishment negotiated with the district attorney. When Fuchs asked Brooks if she had anything to say, Brooks’ head fell backward. When she looked at the judge again, her voice was full of tears.

“I just want to say, it’s really hard,” she said. “The biggest problem is leaving my daughter.” But Brooks said she knew she had to do her time “because of what I chose to do,” and, “I’m going to make the best out of a bad situation.”

“That’s the only thing you can do,” Fuchs replied softly. “There are a lot of ways that you will be a mother to this child.”

In the gallery of Courtroom 324, a woman cradled the dark-haired 2-month-old baby. After the sentencing, the woman declined to speak about Brooks or herself.

END TIER II:  we now have the basic daily-story news: the kid was sentenced and admonished by the judge. Reporter maintains the emotional thread jumpstarted in the first tier, by showing the baby in someone else’s lap.

Begin Tier II: Gives the broader-still background of the crime the girl is being sentenced for. In the reporter’s choice of storytelling tools, she has made the drama of the girl and her lot more present and important than the backdrop of the crime. Part of this is that the crime itself had been covered, so it was “old news” – i.e., now used for background purposes only.

Brooks originally was charged with attempted murder for shooting Brittany Cruz, 13, on Nov. 12 with what police described as a small-caliber pistol.

Police summoned to Southeast 82nd Avenue and Foster Road that night found Cruz suffering a gunshot wound. Witnesses told police that two groups of girls had met, one group asked the other about its gang ties, and Brooks and Cruz argued. Then Brooks pulled out the gun and shot Cruz.

Cruz is recovering from her injuries.

The district attorney wanted Brooks to testify against the man police say gave her the gun, Jose Ramon Zavala-Leon, 24. Police said he was a member of the Latino gang Southside Trece.

Brooks agreed, and she pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of attempted first-degree assault with a firearm on June 2. A week later, Zavala-Leon committed suicide at his home in Wood Village.

KICKER TO Tier III, and also to the WHOLE THING: Brings story back to fate of the girl.

Monday, as the paperwork for her sentencing was completed, Brooks looked over at prosecutor Rod Underhill, who said, “Good luck.” She nodded. Her lawyer, Kathy Berger, touched her on the shoulder.

Brooks stood for a deputy to fasten the handcuffs. As he led her out, Brooks looked at the woman holding her daughter, and said, “Bye.”

thoughts?

Jean P. Fisher: The real question we all need to ask ourselves, in my opinion, is why we don’t use these techniques more often in our own work?

Jean—you have hit on a huge question: Why do we save our “quality effort” for projects and long narratives, when, in fact, we could do quality-effort small stuff along the way ---- simply by being more conscious, by applying some of the thinking and reporting skills you & Liam are talking about above… (i.e., listening for the dialogue, seeing the crux moment, locating the pivotal scene, etc.)

Folks—thoughts on small is beautiful? In the new spot Liam made, things we come across, I would like us to toss out a couple of beautiful short things, the daily that people pass around and say, “Hey—I coulda done that....!” if you got.... thx

ldillon - 02 January 2008 11:34 PM

When I first started covering the city I do, I wrote a bunch of deadline narrative-type pieces about what I thought were weird events. I mean how often do you get 500 70-year-old retired white people in a room booing the city council over the lack of a dog park? Now, strangely, that sort of stuff seems normal to me. .

Liam—can you post (or post tiny url or pdf) of one or more of these in the Stories to Read section? I’m working with a couple of reporters would love some more good examples… thx!

Jean P. Fisher - 02 January 2008 11:58 AM

I am most interested in applying narrative to shorter stories (since those form the bulk of what I do)

Can I be a heretic here?

I wonder if we (as a profession) misuse the term “narrative.”

When you think about it, hasn’t the very very best newswriting throughout news history been “narrative”?
I wonder if, by distinguishing between “narrative” (Linda’s issue, how to frame and get buy-in from an editor for a “narrative” approach; Jean’s issue (above)) and GOOD STORYTELLING NEWSWRITING we are digging our own graves....?

To wit:
Here are a few examples of great newswriting from news history—aren’t these “narrative”?

1. From deadline story about the last lynching in Ca., San Francisco Chronicle, 1933 (won Pulitzer that year for spot news):

The siege of the County jail, a three-hour whirling, howling drama of lynch law, was accomplished as 35 officers vainly fought to defend the citadel ...
Help from San Francisco and Oakland officers arrived too late to save the Hart slayers.
“Don’t string me up, boys. God, don’t string me up,” was the last cry of Holmes as the noose was put about his neck in the light of flash lamps.

3. From Damon Runyon, on the opening days of the Snyder-Gray murder trial, New York American, 1927:

... They went into an adjoining room and had a few drinks of the whiskey used by some Long Islanders, which is very bad, and talked things over. They thought they had committed “the perfect crime,” whatever that may be. It was probably the most imperfect crime on record. It was cruel, atrocious and unspeakably dumb.
They were red-hot lovers then, these two, but they are strangers now.  They never exchanged a glance yesterday as they sat in the cavernous old court room while the citizenry of Long Island tramped in and out of the jury box.

4. From a profile of a bait shop that’s been around for 50 years, Kanabec County (Minn.) Times (1990s):
“Hair?”
“Blond.”
“Eyes?”
“Blue.”
Jerry Larson is filling out another fishing license…
“Height?”
“5-10.”
“Weight?”
The woman hesitates just a second, and then answers, “a hundred and forty.”
Moments later, after paying for her license, the young woman waves it at the other people in her fishing party.
“Look,” she exclaims ... “Where it says my weight, he wrote in ‘129!’ “

5. From a 1956 Ethel Payne piece on the Montgomery bus boycott, Chicago Defender:
The young, the old, the middle-aged, the lame and the halt, housewives, maids and cooks, bellhops, janitors and laborers, school teachers, doctors and lawyers - they were all taking to the road.

6. Edna Buchanan lede in the Miami Herald, 1980s:
The man she loved slapped her face. Furious, she says she told him never, ever to do that again. “What are you going to do, kill me?” he asked, and handed her a gun. “Here, kill me.” She did.

Finally: Clay Felker made this fascinating remark when asked once about “the New Journalism”—the term used to describe Felker’s writers from the New York Herald Tribune era (and later, New York Magazine)—the Tom Wolfe/ Gay Talese crowd): 

”I always felt that the title ("New Journalism") was crazy because when I was wandering around the stacks one day I came across bound volumes of Greeley’s Tribune. It was right after the Civil War period. And I discovered that the writing was as fresh and dramatic as anything being written ...  they were using all of the classical literary techniques of storytelling, narrative flow. And so I said, ‘hey, there’s another way to write,’ and I began looking for writers (for the Herald-Tribune) who could write that way.”

Would like to start posting “narrative” dailies (i.e., cool news stories, as above...) please let’s do, as you come across, “ Things We Come Across” thread…

thoughts?

ldillon - 16 January 2008 12:51 AM

A recent example:
“A Marco Island City Councilman faces charges of violating Florida public records laws in what open government experts are calling an unprecedented action by state prosecutors.

Councilman Chuck Kiester, 67, is charged with failing to maintain, preserve or allow inspection of public records from when he took office in March 2006 to March 2007, according to a summons issued by Assistant State Attorney Dean Plattner and served to Kiester on Tuesday.”

This is so lame.

Liam—why “lame?” I think it is good, useful formulaic purveying of information. I mean, it is newsworthy that the guy failed to allow inspection of public records, it is newsworthy that his actions have inspired “an unprecedented action by state prosecutors.” I’m not sure that I see an inherent dramatic core (as there is in FELON) that would lend itself to a non-traditional approach, or an attempt at narrative. 

Which goes back to Jean’s question—how do you know when a daily story is right for a non-traditional (or narrative) approach. Maybe the answer is, when there’s an inherent dramatic core to bore into.

Maybe if this more formulaic story were followed with an interview with the guy, in which he provided that inherent drama (i.e, “I have always hated the idea of government in the sunshine, if you wanna know the truth...."), then that would warrant a non-traditional/ dramatic follow?

ldillon - 30 January 2008 11:15 PM

In straight stories like this one, chronology is pretty simple. But there should be a number of other issues that we must always confront when we’re writing.

I think maybe that’s the best statement of what I’d like to accomplish the most from this discussion in its entirety: identifying the issues we must confront.

Wow. This is a brainful. I am going to ask Jacqui B to weigh in here, I think, to explore the reaches of what you’re asking here… geez Louise. Wouldn’t it be great if there was an 8-point check list?

For what it’s worth, I often have reporters write out answers to a brainstorming questionnaire (can post if you like). The three key questions, to my mind, are these:
-- What is the informational core of the story?
-- What is the intellectual core?
-- What is the emotional core?
If a story is purely informational (your guy above, seems to me), then the answer is pretty simple: It’s a straight new story. If you find yourself delving in brainstorm mode into both intellectual core stuff and emotional core stuff, then, clearly, you have a story that is worth exploring and finding a useful frame (versus straight news above) for.

It’s not exactly an 8-point check list of must-haves, but it’s a tool…

edjsandoval - 05 February 2008 09:51 PM

one to keep and re-read now and then…

Edgar—welcome to the group! I think this point above—keep and read now and then—is a GREAT tool for writers that are serious about developing their craft. Find a few great models (don’t have to be long)… go back, and back again later. Each time you do, and as you develop, you will see new things ...

ldillon - 12 February 2008 10:47 PM

Given what you’ve written about the situation, my very general advice would be to decide first what one idea you want people to take away from the story. If necessary separate the characters for clarity and then use each character’s section to build toward that one idea.

Good advice ...!
Hey, Janine, don’t know exactly what the story is or how much stuff you have from each person (would be happy to have email conversation about, if it would help), but how ‘bout taking Liam’s advice above, find a key idea or point or thread or incident or whatever, and then use each character/source as a point of view on that point/incident/ etc. ... in other words, the way that Joe Schmoe sees Incident A is this… the way Pete Jones sees it is this.. and the way Susie Q sees it is the other ... and somewhere therein lies, well, the real story? (again, don’t know what kind of info you have from each, but so often, three people’s version/vision of the same incident differ, and what an interesting and textured way to present. Let us know how it shakes down.