Writing a story for Web

By Anna Poludenko

I’ll have my article pulled together in no time

The Seven Deadly Sins

• 1. Pride

• 2. Rush

• 3. Comprehensive search VS focus

• 4. Apathy

• 5. Don’t use the same source for every search

• 6. Don’t be narrow minded

• 7. Ignorance

Story-building Steps

1. Listen to find the story

(listen VS monitor?)

2. Where is it likely to be?

3. What search tool might provide it?

(search engines, subject directories)

4. Specify the field

I FAILED TO SEE HOW FILMING A CAT MAKES ME A CITIZEN JOURNALIST

The Invisible or Cloaked Web

• Search engine index – less than 10% of the web.

• Google – less than 6% of all available.

Use primary search engines to locate the database (I want jobs in

Honolulu)

Search within those database.

Writing= story telling

• Hard news - event driven

• Profile – microcosmos

• Trend stories – light features, hard news, soft news – changes in demographics.

• Opinion – reviews, editorial, columns – people from the community who has something interesting.

Structure I

1. The Inverted Pyramid

• - most important

• - details later

• - critics

II

• Top (lead – hard news)

• Transition

• Typical\ chronicle

• Narrative

III

• The anecdotal lead

- mini-story

REPORTING

Lead

• Intrigue!

• Straight,

• Feature

• Dangerous

• Prohbited

Straight

• Summarize the information.

• Quick into the story.

• Blind – drop important details but leave something the most important.

• The basic building block but doesn’t have to be boring.

• Which details to use in the first paragraph and which to skipp.

Feature

• Anecdotal – quick story that demonstrates.

• Narrative – give a sense of a place \ people

• Scene-setter – description of where the event is taking place.

• Significant detail.

• Word play.

Dangerous

• The story is supposed to answer the questions not ask them.

- Mishandle the question

- the quote

- the topic

- Ineffective quotes to loose its power.

-General description

Prohibited Leads

• They are heeeere

• Its official

• He leaned back in his chair

• The dictionary definition.

Nut graph

• The main theme statement of the story

: here is what my story is about to get my information out straight forward.

Followed by paragraphs that answer key questions

Transition

• Signals that the story is moving from one point to another

The three-legged stool

• Statistics

• Example

• Quote

Ending

• Circling back

• Looking forward