Good writing follows good reporting and interviewing. Once you have gathered all the information you will need from the field, creating a narrative story structure is the next step. All you need now is a great story, great material that surprises and delights the reader while grabbing and holding the reader’s attention, with great words presented stylishly.

The Parts of the Story

Regardless of their complexity, all stories have a beginning, middle, and end.

• The beginning or opening establishes the scene, sets the mood and tone, introduces the main characters, and grips the reader’s attention to draw them further into the story.
• The middle tells the main part of the story with facts and description that appeals to human senses (sight, sound, touch, and occasionally smell and taste) and emotions.
• The end concludes the story, sums up the action, and often returns to the opening scene for the conclusion.

Go from the most important facts to the least important. Start your story with an introductory sentence that summarizes the story's important information, and then arrange the supporting details in descending order of significance. This ensures that the reader will get all of the essential information, even if they don't read the entire article. Also, be sure to keep all parts of a subject together; don't jump around.

In addition to these basic elements, stories have certain characteristics that should be followed. These characteristics ensure that you maintain order, objectivity, and accuracy.
• Unity: Stick to telling one story. Eliminate anything that does not have some part in telling the story. Avoid padding the story with irrelevant details.
• Mood: The overall mood of the story is determined by carefully chosen adjectives, strong verbs, and sometimes the facts of the story.
• Focus: Only include relevant information. Know your reader and do not burden them with commonplace background or historical information they all know.
• Angle: The point of view or perspective from which your story is told. Most stories are written in the third person past tense.
• Sources: Be sure to include the names of people who do and say things in your story.
• Objectivity: Do not include yourself in the story. Write “The Falcons had a great season” instead of “We had a great season.” Never editorialize or express your opinions in the story.
• Direct Quotes: Quotes are a great way to bring in the subject’s emotions or spirit in a short, concise manner. Always indicate who the speaker is and do not forget quotation marks.

Word Traps to Avoid

1. Slang: It’s amazing how quickly neat, far-out, and tubular phrases can go out of style and become meaningless. Rizz?
2. Nicknames: Not everyone knows that Matthew B. is sometimes known as Stinky, and maybe he’d like to keep it that way.
3. Rhetorical Questions: Should we really be asking this, or is it self-evident???
4. Redundancy: Repetition, reiteration, and re-statement make your stories long, boring, dull, and uninteresting.
5. Flowery Prose: Watch out for overuse of smart, clever, witty, bright, and brainy phrases.
6. Vague Details: It’s hard to say how often this word trap can almost be the downfall of your story.
7. Bad Puns: Unlike old cheese, say a cheddar, these bad puns won’t get any beddar.

The Different Stages of Writing

To yield the best result for your copy, writers should develop their stories in stages. This will ensure that they do not miss any pieces and hit all the key elements:

1. First Draft: Look for a good opening and closing. List story elements in point form. Try for story completeness, but do not worry about spelling, grammar, or composition just yet.
2. Second Draft: Work on content. The story elements should all be there by now but not completely polished.
3. Final Draft: Perform spelling and grammar checks. Proofread carefully for errors not found by spellcheck. Have other individuals read your story. Make any corrections and submit it to the editor.