Storytelling has increasingly become a communication tool in journalism. From news reports and feature articles to op-eds and personal essays, digital media, to poetry and fiction; your writing is limited only by your imagination.
News reports and feature writing follow more rules compared to personal essays. Instead of expressing your own opinions on a subject, you must instead focus on the facts, the perspectives of experts, and the testimonies of the people impacted by the story you are telling.
Hook the reader with an introductory description of the actions of your main interviewee during your time with them. Can you reveal traits of their character? This could be scenes, details, dialogue, a sequence of actions, or something they said that captures their personality and clues the reader in on the main subject of your article.
News reports and feature writing can inform the audience of the issue that you are covering. Learn the difference between reports and stories–then blend the two. Reports provide information, but they don’t need to be dull.
“Stories create an experience,” said Roy Peter Clark in Writing Tools. “Reports transfer knowledge. Stories transport the reader, crossing boundaries of time, space and imagination. The report points us there. The story puts us there.”
When brainstorming article topics, look for issues, conflicts, and challenges in your community and then try to identify the people most impacted by them. Build your writing around a key question. This becomes the engine of your story and drives the action.
Writing that reflects on your personal experience can often be a touching and relatable way to communicate important truths about the world. As readers, we relate to characters and sometimes, the best character to write about is yourself!
How has climate change affected your hometown? What personal experiences in nature have shaped your identity? How has your community risen up to face environmental injustices?
In personal essays and reflections, you can use “I-statements” and express your opinions, but strong claims should still be backed up with reputable citations and your story should still be informed by compelling data.
You may want to open your article with a personal anecdote, fill in the middle with data and research, and then end with a final anecdote from your life that looks towards the future.
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