The Middle - the story architect

What forms a news story?

Last night in a news conference, three pork-fried fish explained their journey for the first time. The end.

People have an appetite for what's in the middle. They would like to know what was said at the news conference... before the end.

In TV news, the opening line is the tease, and is unfortunately meant to keep people watching an hour-long news cast to the 58th. minute when the story is finally revealed. The tease keeps people around until the meat arrives. The meat is the middle of the story.

"Oh, no! Does this mean that journalists can't just recite the facts - they have to wrestle with stories to wring some juicy morsels out of the dusty bits of chaos of life that never make sense?"

Stories have three important qualities: (skip this boring list if you dare.)

1)They generate interest through:

2) They have a coherent sequence that strings items together so that they make sense, such as:

3) They tell us something about life, giving us:

Remove any of the above and you seriously impact the ability of the story to communicate. You may be left with a tease or a spectacle instead of a story. Without these, the report moves from the realm of story to the realm of sensationalism.

What happens in the middle? In a well-told story, all of the above. In a poorly told story, the storyline sags, people lose interest, their eyes glaze over, and they turn the page or the channel.

How do you tell a story well? A storyteller (reporter) architects a story. He doesn't structure it - structure is boring. He architects it - architecture is interesting. An architect knows what story elements, structure, and devices capture people and hold their interest. He crafts raw material into a story rich with significance.

Isn't this fake? When a building architect designs a building and people see the final product, do they mutter, "It's just a box. He just disguised it well." No, they admire the facade. They appreciate not just the engineering skill, but the artistic skill. Storytellers do the same thing. They architect a story so that people react to it.

Little Red Riding Hood was just another wolf in disguise story on the police blotter. And then some storyteller crafted it into a story with compelling characters, suspenseful and mysterious chronology, situated it in an interesting locale, and populated the story with scary events. So then the story came to life and jumped off the page. Even children know the story.

How then is a story architected? By richly endowing each story element with details that generate interest, using the storyteller's (reporter's) tools: characterization, theme, and plot.

Characterization: Who is this person? Not all characters are as compelling as Little Red Riding Hood, but it doesn't matter. We care about most people if we can relate to them. All we need is a little background on the person.

Theme: Why is this happening to these people and creating this event(s)?

Plot: Tell the events in chronological order. The reporter's tools are narration (their voice or words), images of the dramatic action (descriptions, illustrations, pictures, video), statements (press conferences, personal narration), and interviews. These are woven together in a way that generates interest, sometimes using the elements of mystery and suspense to create interest. Mystery and suspense pull people in, leading them step by step through the chronological sequence.

But don't people feel manipulated if they feel the reporter purposely withheld information from the start? Sometimes. It's often OK in a news story to tell the ending first. In real life, people know the end and want to know what shaped the story so that it ended the way that it did. They want to know the middle - the why.

Next: The end

- Scott

Watch for more articles in this series.

Also see these articles:
• Beginning, Middle, and End
• The Beginning - The hook. Why would I care?
• The Middle - What forms a news story?
• The End - pie and coffee

Also see these previous articles:

• Making the News Interesting
• Entertainment or News
• Freedom of the Press; The Challenges For Democracy series

References:

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