The Body of a News Story

1
The Body of a News Story

• Chapter 9

2
Storytelling Styles

• Organizing the Story (Four Styles)
• Inverted pyramidsummary lead then information in
  descending order of importance (dates back to the
  American Civil War)
• Hour glass stylestarts with inverted pyramid,
  then has the turn which moves story into a
  chronological conclusion
• Focus stylebegins with a lead that focuses on a
  specific individual, situation or anecdote and
  uses that to illustrate a larger problem. AKA
  personalizing or humanizing, or the diamond
  effect
• Narrative stylestoryteller writes as a
  playwright or novelist would, depicting people
  interacting with other people and within their
  surroundings. This technique requires more than
  just interviewing sources, recording quotes and
  reporting numbers. It requires observation.

3
Using Transitions

• This chapter also goes into the importance of
  second paragraphs and transitions that need to
  help move along the story
• Transitions help stories move from one fact to
  the next in a smooth logical order
• Think of the story as a train the engine is the
  lead, and each car that follows is a paragraph.
  The couplings that hold the paragraphs together
  are transitions
• Words help readers move from one idea to the
  next meantime, also, instead, etc.

4
Transition Sentences

• Transitional sentences link paragraphs that
  contain diverse ideas
• The transition sentences, like lead sentences,
  should do more than report that another idea was
  introduced or discussed (label leads)
• They should instead present some interesting
  details about the new topic so readers will want
  to finish the story
• A good transitional sentence often serves the
  same purposes as a lead, summarizing the topic it
  introduces and revealing what was said or done
  about it