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Without actors,
stories are lifeless
By Jim Killam Imagine going to the movies. You watch the opening credits as the camera introduces a city with wide, aerial shots of familiar landmarks. The shots move to street level. You see a bustle of activity, with cars and people moving every which way.
The camera suddenly pans upward. Bright flashes appear in the sky, and meteorites begin raining on the city. Cars and buildings are smashed. Screaming people run for cover.
Cut to a news conference, where two scientists explain that the meteorites are fragments of a comet that was heading toward earth, but diverted at the last possible moment by a nuclear bomb. The scientists -- played by actors you’ve never heard of -- explain how astronauts delivered and detonated the bomb. The world is safe again, and the closing credits roll.
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Now imagine attending a murder trial. Hour after hour, attorneys question DNA experts and crime-scene analysts. Just when the eyewitnesses, and then the defendant, are ready to testify, the judge halts the trial and renders a verdict.
Feel like no one heard the whole story?
In a way, this is how too many people feel about newspapers. Sure, we give them plenty of facts, and experts’ opinions about those facts. But it isn’t enough. We’ve provided no emotional connection. We haven’t introduced the actors.
The problem lies in our approach to sourcing. We stumble across a significant number -- housing starts are up 12 percent in our city this year. Then we get on the phone with the observers: the mayor, city planners, big developers, school superintendents, the chamber of commerce. They give us quotes about how significant this all is: what it means for the area’s future, how the tax base is growing, how services will struggle to keep up, how we’ll need more schools, blah blah, blah.
And then we stop. Deadline’s calling, and we have enough in our notebooks for a 12-inch story. The city movers and shakers will read it to see themselves quoted. The average reader might read the lead and think, “Hmm, I probably should care about that,” and then move on to another story. We made no emotional connection.
In his excellent but little-known book, “The Art and Craft of Feature Writing” former Wall Street Journal reporter William Blundell says readers relate to these story elements and in this order:
- Actors. The real people living the story.
- Facts. But only when they are relevant and move the story forward.
- Observers. The experts and analysts who talk about the story.
- Numbers. Some are vital to the story. Some only muddle it -- especially big numbers, or a lot of numbers in one small section of the story. Use only the most important numbers in your story, Blundell says. Don’t bombard readers with stuff they won't remember anyway.
It helps me to think of every story as a movie. Scene setting and plot introduction are important. But if I don’t introduce the main characters early, and tell the story based on their experiences, then readers aren’t likely to stay interested.
In our local housing-trends story, I need to talk with families moving into the area. I need to visit a crowded classroom. I need to interview carpenters and contractors who are working weekends to keep up with the demand. Now the story has a face.
Blundell writes: “The insights and interpretations of observers are useful in many stories, but the reader regards them coolly. Other things being equal, he would rather hear a farmer talking about the damage boll weevils have done to his own cotton field than suffer the ramblings of a professor at the University of Arizona who offers the expert and painfully obvious opinion that the insect is becoming a threat to Southwestern cotton crops. The farmer has more credibility because he has suffered. He is an actor in the play.”
A writer also can think of this as using a combination of aerial views and ground-level views to tell a story. What can you tell about a city when you fly over it? What can you tell about it when you walk the streets? The aerial view of a story provides the experts, the analysts, the people who figure out trends. The ground-level view provides actors, the real people living the story. A good story needs both, but it’s the actors that readers will remember.
That’s all about creating an emotional connection with readers. When we don’t -- when there are no stories and actors in the paper but only piles of facts and quotes -- we write our own epitath:
Here lies the Daily Newspaper. It seemed important, but nobody cared.
Jim Killam is adviser for the Northern Star, the daily student newspaper at Northern Illinois University. He also is NINA’s communications coordinator and edits this newsletter. Contact him at jkillam@niu.edu or 815-753-4239.