The inverted pyramid was born during the Civil War
At about the time these Union soldiers were marching off to war, journalists invented the traditional inverted pyramid news structure. … Read the full article
Human interest
Get your hands dirty
Human interest for all topics
It seems so reasonable to tell human-interest stories to illustrate the need for bone-marrow transplants, the sad results of texting while driving — even solutions for childhood obesity.… Read the full article
Paint word pictures
‘You’ll have your hand on your head with a knot under it’
My grandma and namesake, Annie B. Vrana, was an Oklahoma farm woman and one of the most colorful people I’ve known.… Read the full article
How small is small?
Mini narratives can be as brief as a paragraph
In The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee shares this tiny tale:
“In 2005, a man diagnosed with multiple myeloma asked me if he would be alive to watch his daughter graduate from high school in a few months.… Read the full article
More pocket profiles
Use ‘narrative shorthand’
In a recent issue, I introduced “pocket profiles.” That’s squeezing a big life into a small space — without compressing all of the life out of a person — by using “narrative shorthand.”… Read the full article
Use ‘narrative shorthand’
Squeeze a big life into a small space
How do you pack a large life into a tight space?
Try a “pocket profile.” That’s the technique Anjelica Huston used to describe her great-great-great grandfather in her new memoir, A Story Lately Told:
“… a prospector, John Gore, who started up several newspapers from Kansas to New York.… Read the full article
6 words about writing
Readers offer super-short tips
Last month, in honor of Students First’s six-word essay contest to best describe what it means to be a great teacher, we asked readers to send us their writing tips in six words.… Read the full article
Take the (other) Flesch test
Make your copy measurably more interesting
Can you measure how interesting your copy is? Readability expert Rudolph Flesch believed that you can.
Flesch is famous for developing the Flesch Reading Ease, one of the most popular and widely used readability tests.… Read the full article