Delivering on the Promise: The Final Story

I would contend that one of the most important aspects of feature writing is ensuring that your story pitch delivers on the promise you make to a potential editor or publisher. In other words, does the final story measure up to what you say it will be? Katrina Onstad's pitch for her story "My Year of Living Dangerously" appears on p.38. Compare her pitch to the final story. Does it deliver on the promise(s) contained within her letter to ELLE magazine? Is so, what key elements in her pitch might have contributed to her eventual success in getting the story published?

The "Perfect Pitch": Getting Your Story Published

This week we will concentrate on approaches and strategies for capturing an editor's attention. While this is the second chapter in the text, it seemed to me when designing this course that working on how to pitch a story should come only after having a story to pitch. Read Matthew Hays' advice, especially the sample pitch letters that led to successful publications. Decide on a publication for which your final long-form story might be appropriate, both in terms of its subject and the publication's audience. Using Hays' advice, tell us how you would pitch your story to that publication's editor.

Taking the High Road: " Into the Valley of Death"

In discussing the differences between fiction and non-fiction narrative writing, Ivor Shapiro (pp. 292-293)compares Stephanie Nolen's story "Into the Valley of Death" to a New York Times account on the same subject: civil unrest in Kenya following disputed election results. Both are "true" accounts, he says, "but Nolan's story is distinguished by an approach that reads like fiction--a fast paced, first-person narrative of a descent into danger." What specific elements make her story compelling in the same way that a work of fiction might capture and keep our interest? Also, are there specific points in her narrative where she might have been tempted to "tweak" or fabricate the truth about what she observed to make a better story, ala Jayson Blair,Janet Cooke, and the others we discussed in class?

Truth and the Storyteller: Ethics in Non-Fiction

In this chapter, Ivor Shapiro takes us through the process of using the techniques of fiction and applying them to non-fiction writing. He makes a case for how easily a feature article, in the hands of an unscrupulous person, can take a turn for the worse by enhancing the storyline, embellishing or adding to quotes, or direct fabrication of content. He refers to "the seductive similarity between writing a feature story of journalism, on the one hand, and writing a short story of fiction on the other. He even says that, as a young reporter, he was once told by his editor to "tweak" a story for a travel magazine to make it more "effective" for the reader." The specific request was to put himself in the story checking into a hotel that he (Shapiro) had never visited. The editor told him "this kind of thing was done all the time in travel pieces, 'tweaking' at little details that don't change any of the basic facts." It should make us cautious, he suggests, about being sure that our feature stories are, first and foremost, true. Jayson Blair, a former New York Times reporter and Janet Cooke, formerly of the Washington Post (each seen above), could be considered examples of crossing an ethical line in their feature writing. Look up some background on each. Do you agree that they are examples of what Shapiro is suggesting? Why or why not? Are they alone or have there been others who exemplify the same issue?