Feature and Magazine Writing E-Book

David E. Sumner

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 536

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Updated with fresh facts, examples and illustrations, along with two new chapters on digital media and blogs this third edition continues to be the authoritative and essential guide to writing engaging and marketable feature stories.

• Covers everything from finding original ideas and angles to locating expert sources
• Expanded edition with new chapters on storytelling for digital media and building a story blog
• Captivating style exemplifies the authors’ expert guidance, combining academic authority with professional know-how
• Comprehensive coverage of all the angles, including marketing written work and finding jobs in the publishing industry
• Essential reading for anyone wishing to become a strong feature writer
• Accompanied by a website with a wealth of resources including PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and Q&As that will be available upon publication: www.wiley.com/go/sumnerandmiller

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

PREFACE

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

PART I: READING, WRITING AND RELEVANCE

1 WHAT MAKES A STORY INTERESTING?

KEY POINTS

FIVE MISTAKES OF BEGINNING WRITERS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

2 HOW TO FIND AN ORIGINAL IDEA

KEY POINTS

DETERMINE YOUR ANGLE

NINE PLACES TO FIND IDEAS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

3 STRONG ANGLES AND FOCUSED IDEAS

KEY POINTS

SUMMARIZE YOUR STORY IDEA IN A SINGLE SENTENCE

CHARACTERISTICS OF A FOCUSED ANGLE

HOW TO KNOW IF YOUR TOPIC IS TOO BROAD

HOW TO NARROW YOUR TOPIC

SUMMARY

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

4 DIGGING DEEP FOR ORIGINAL STORIES

KEY POINTS

THE “40–40–20” RULE OF RESEARCH

WHY YOU NEED LIBRARIES

WHY INTERVIEWS ARE ESSENTIAL

PRIMARY SOURCES: VITAL FOR ORIGINALITY

THE INTERNET: PRIMARY OR SECONDARY SOURCE?

COPYRIGHT AND FAIR USE

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

5 TALKING POINTERS

KEY POINTS

FIRST, YOU PREPARE

INSIGHTS VS. INFORMATION

IDENTIFYING EXPERTS AND ACTORS

GET READY, GET SET

OFF TO A STRONG START

BUT WHAT IF . . . ?

TIME TO SWITCH ROLES

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

PART II: TAKING YOUR ARTICLES TO THE FREELANCE MARKET

6 TO MARKET, TO MARKET

KEY POINTS

DISCOVERING AVAILABLE RESOURCES

COLLECTING WRITERS’ GUIDELINES

ANALYZING MARKETS—ON YOUR OWN

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

PERSISTENCE PAYS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

7 PITCH-PERFECT QUERY LETTERS

KEY POINTS

IN PURSUIT OF PERFECTION

ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF A QUERY

WHAT NOT TO INCLUDE IN A QUERY

WHEN TO QUERY

SNAIL MAIL VS. E-MAIL QUERIES

P.S. TRY AGAIN

SAMPLE QUERY LETTERS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

PART III: ADDING ACTION AND ANECDOTES

8 WHERE TO BEGIN

KEY POINTS

COMING TO TERMS WITH LEADS

BEYOND THE SUMMARY LEAD

LEADS THAT SUCCEED

MISTAKES TO AVOID

ENDINGS THAT SATISFY READERS

IDENTIFYING THE BOOKENDS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

9 ACTION, BREVITY AND STYLE

KEY POINTS

USE ACTION VERBS

WRITE IN ACTIVE VOICE

AVOID DEAD CONSTRUCTIONS

INCLUDE THE DETAILS

WRITE CONCISELY

CHOOSE YOUR VIEWPOINT

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

10 ANECDOTES

KEY POINTS

CREATING A SCENE

THE POWER OF THE ANECDOTE

CHARACTERISTICS OF ANECDOTES

SEARCHING FOR ANECDOTES

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

PART IV: DIFFERENT FORMATS, DIFFERENT RESULTS

11 BRIEFS

KEY POINTS

OFFERING A LOCAL ANGLE

THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD OF SHORTS

BRIEFS VS. FILLERS

SHOPPING FOR SHORTS AND BRIEFS

FLEXIBLE LIST ARTICLES

PERSONAL-EXPERIENCE SHORTS

RECYCLING ANECDOTES

BEYOND THE BLURB

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

12 PROFILES

KEY POINTS

AVOIDING PROFILES THAT GUSH

PURSUING WARTS AND ALL

ASSEMBLING THE PICTURE

OFFERING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

ADDING COLOR TO THE PICTURE

FILE FOR THE FUTURE

PUTTING A FACE ON AN ISSUE

FROM QUICK TAKES TO ROUNDUPS

EXPERIMENTING WITH THE Q & A

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

13 WRITING NONFICTION NARRATIVES

KEY POINTS

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD NARRATIVE

TYPES OF PLOTS

WHERE TO FIND GOOD STORIES

TIPS ON TELLING STORIES

TIPS ON CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

14 ELIMINATING THE HO-HUM FROM THE HOW-TO

KEY POINTS

LOOKING FOR ANSWERS

THREE CHARACTERISTICS OF SERVICE ARTICLES

THE FOUR-PART FORMULA

DELIVER THE GOODS

TANGIBLE VS. INTANGIBLE HOW-TO ARTICLES

HOW-TO ARTICLES AS SIDEBARS

WHERE TO LOOK FOR HOW-TO IDEAS

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

15 MAKING A TIMELY CALENDAR CONNECTION

KEY POINTS

FAST FORWARD FOUR TO SIX MONTHS

CREATING A SEASONAL LINK

FORGET “THE FIRST THANKSGIVING”

CONNECTING THE DOTS

NEW LIFE FOR OLD TOPICS

BIRTHDAY ISSUES REAP REWARDS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

16 WRITING ABOUT TRENDS AND ISSUES

KEY POINTS

DEFINITION OF TREND STORIES

DEFINITION OF ISSUE STORIES

FIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF TREND AND ISSUE STORIES

WHERE TO LOOK FOR TREND AND ISSUE STORIES

HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST ANGLE

HOW TO DO THE REPORTING

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

PART V: EXPLORING DIGITAL OPPORTUNITIES

17 BUILDING A STORY BLOG

KEY POINTS

WHAT TYPE OF BLOG?

CREATOR BLOGS

CONVERSATIONALIST BLOGS

CRITIC BLOGS

COLLECTOR BLOGS

BEYOND THE PAGE

PODCASTS

VLOGS (VIDEO BLOGS)

THE FEAR

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

18 LONG-FORM DIGITAL STORYTELLING

KEY POINTS

DEFINING DIGITAL STORYTELLING

CINEMATIC STORY ELEMENTS

BASIC HEURISTICS AND GUIDELINES

THE PRODUCTION CYCLE

THE FUTURE OF THE MAGAZINE

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

PART VI: PREPARING THE FINAL DRAFT

19 ADVANCING BEYOND THE SLUSH PILE

KEY POINTS

SEVEN PLACES TO NEVER USE A COMMA

SEVEN PLACES TO ALWAYS USE A COMMA

SEVEN OTHER PUNCTUATION MARKS

SEVEN FREQUENT GRAMMAR MISTAKES

THE SEVEN MOST COMMON AP STYLEBOOK MISTAKES

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

ASSIGNMENTS

20 BEFORE YOU HIT THE “SEND” BUTTON

KEY POINTS

21 CAREERS IN MAGAZINE PUBLISHING

KEY POINTS

BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS PUBLICATIONS

ASSOCIATION MAGAZINES AND SPONSORED PUBLICATIONS

WHAT ABOUT NEW YORK?

WHAT ABOUT A MASTER’S DEGREE?

PRACTICAL TIPS ON JOB-HUNTING

APPENDIX: SHOPTALK: A GLOSSARY OF MAGAZINE LINGO

INDEX

This third edition first published 2013

© 2013 David E. Sumner and Holly G. Miller

Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (1e, 2005; 2e, 2009)

Wiley-Blackwell is an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, formed by the merger of Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sumner, David E., 1946– author.

 Feature and magazine writing : action, angle, and anecdotes / David E. Sumner and Holly G. Miller. – Third Edition.

pages cm

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-1-118-30513-3 (pbk.)

 1. Feature writing. 2. Journalism–Authorship. I. Miller, Holly G., author. II. Sumner, David E., 1946– Feature & magazine writing. III. Title.

 PN4784.F37S86 2013

 808.06'607–dc23

2012037005

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Glowing mobile phone standing on digital pads © CLIPAREA / Custom media; Sprinter getting ready to start the race © Peter Bernik; Public safety patrol on the street © SVLuma; Man holding object © Adchariyaphoto; Business collage made of 225 business pictures © Maksim Shmeljov

Cover design by RBDA

PREFACE

FEATURE WRITING IN A DIGITAL ERA

The success of the second edition of Feature and Magazine Writing: Action, Angle and Anecdotes led the publisher to ask us to write a new and updated edition. The second edition’s adoption by dozens of universities in the United States and its substantial sales in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia have made us recognize we write for readers worldwide. Yet, in the past five years, the breathtaking changes in delivery technology have erased geographical boundaries. Distinctions in “feature writing” for newspapers, magazines and online media have blurred and even disappeared as the mass media have developed applications to enable instant access to their content anytime, anywhere. While we continue to offer a focus on writing for magazines, we have expanded the definition of content to include feature writing for all media forms.

The power of magazines has always been the personal identity that they convey as well as their color, design and editorial tone. Magazines are the most intimate form of media because they establish a relationship with their readers unequalled by newspapers, television or radio. A magazine becomes a friend—a reflection of and integral part of the reader’s personal and professional life. While print magazine circulation has declined by 5 to 10 percent in the past 10 years, it has not declined as substantially as that of newspapers. Many top consumer magazines have reported healthy gains in digital-only subscribers. Cosmopolitan, for example, which has the highest newsstand circulation of any American magazine, was the first to reach a milestone: 100,000 paid digital subscriptions in 2012. Condé Nast Publishing hit the 500,000 digital subscription mark among eight of its publications a few months earlier.

“A couple of years ago, the big question was what’s going to happen to magazines like Cosmo in the future?” Kate White, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, told Ad Age. “There was a little bit of anxiety. What this has done is say that our content will rule and will thrive. Women want our content, and they’ll get it on a variety of platforms.”

Content remains king in any medium.

Because we’re convinced that every good product can be better, we’ve updated this third edition with fresh facts and examples, and we’ve integrated ideas and suggestions gleaned from teachers, students, professional writers and editors. Most chapters have been strengthened with new facts and fresh examples, and we’ve added two new chapters.

“Building a Story Blog” (Chapter 17) explores how writers can create a digital presence around a story or collection of stories that extend the writing beyond the article. It examines excellent magazine writer blogs, analyzes the kinds of blogs a writer may want to build, discusses how to manage the digital community and explains how to balance long-form writing with short-form blogging and community management.

“Long-Form Digital Storytelling” (Chapter 18) explains what’s required to tell long-form stories within a tablet environment. It covers the magazine environment on the iPad and long-form writing with tablets and other digital readers. It explains the skills required to conceptualize and create this kind of story. We invited our tech-savvy colleague Brad King to share his expertise in these two chapters.

Storytelling has created universal bonds between people in all cul­tures and all ages. Editors will always seek original stories that inform, inspire and entertain, whether in print or online. This book is based on that long-time formula for successful feature writing: provide stories and information that readers can’t get anywhere else. Between the covers of this textbook we explain the entire process—from identifying a good idea to creating an original angle, and from finding primary sources to constructing a final draft. We focus on a basic principle: telling stories about people and putting people into every story.

Our joint experiences outside the classroom include overseeing the lifestyle section of a daily newspaper, serving as editors of an online magazine and print magazines, supervising Ball Bearings, an award-winning campus magazine, fulfilling hundreds of freelance feature assignments, and writing books. The chapters in this book are based on our professional experience as well as our experience teaching feature and magazine writing classes for more than 25 years. Yet writing is an indomitable challenge. The goal of this book is to equip the next generation of feature writers with the tools to meet those challenges of writing in any medium for people anywhere.

David E. SumnerHolly G. MillerAugust 2012

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David E. Sumner is a professor of journalism and head of the magazine journalism program at Ball State University, U.S.A. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and is a former “Magazine Educator of the Year” in recognition of his contribution to journalism teaching. He has given papers and talks about magazines and magazine writing from Turkey to Honduras and throughout the United States. His books include The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900 (2010) and Magazines: A Complete Guide to the Industry (2006).

Holly G. Miller is a working journalist and communications consultant with bylines in numerous publications including Reader’s Digest, TV Guide and Indianapolis Monthly. She has degrees from Indiana University and Ball State University, U.S.A., and teaches advanced feature-writing classes across America. In addition to writing, ghost-writing and co-authoring more than a dozen books, she has won awards from the Associated Press, the Society of American Travel Writers and the Evangelical Press Association.

PART IREADING, WRITING AND RELEVANCE

“Ninety-eight percent of the people who get the magazine say they read the cartoons first—and the other 2 percent are lying.”

David Remnick, editor

The New Yorker

The challenge of every feature writer is to find a topic that is so relevant and riveting that readers tune out all distractions—regardless how entertaining—and concentrate on the article’s content. The process begins with knowing where to look for such topics, understanding the audience that the publication serves and conducting in-depth research.

1

WHAT MAKES A STORY INTERESTING?

KEY POINTS

Why action, angle and anecdotes matter

What makes a story interesting?

Understanding readers and reader demographics

Five mistakes of beginning writers

“Sálvame, por favor. Sálvame. Save me. Please save me,” he prays to Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the chilly, early morning hours of March 24, 2009, 57-year-old José Arias fights for his life, floating in the water 66 miles from Cape May. The nearest lights are from another fishing vessel, which does not see him, anchored less than a half-mile away. A little farther out, a mammoth container ship steams toward Philadelphia. Although Arias does not know it yet, all six of his friends and fellow fishermen are dead, and the red-hulled scalloper, the Lady Mary, is resting, right-side up, on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic.

Thus begins “The Wreck of the Lady Mary,” a story that won the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for Newark Star-Ledger reporter Amy Ellis Nutt. She reported a deeply probing story of the mysterious sinking of a commercial fishing boat that drowned six men in the Atlantic Ocean.1

“The Man the White House Wakes Up To,” in the New York Times Magazine, profiled Mike Allen, publisher of the daily e-mail newsletter Playbook, which thousands of the nation’s most influential political leaders, media executives and journalists read daily for their “insider” news about politics.2 The profile, which won a National Magazine Award, told this anecdote about Allen:

In 1993, Allen was covering a trial in Richmond, Va., for The New York Times (as a stringer) and The Richmond Times-Dispatch (which employed him). He found a pay phone, darted into the street and got whacked by a car. Allen composed himself, filed stories for both papers and then found his way to the hospital with a broken elbow. This is one of the many “Mikey Stories” that Washingtonians share with awe and some concern.

“You Have Thousands of Angels Around You,” from Atlanta Magazine, told a heart-tugging story about Cynthia Siyomvo, a 17-year-old refugee from Burundi who, after arriving in Atlanta without any family, faced the threat of deportation. But soon she discovered a circle of new friends who helped her find a home, and she began pursuing a biology degree and a career in medicine.3

These stories, all of which won either the National Magazine Award or the Pulitzer Prize, offer rich examples of action, angle and anecdotes, the three primary ingredients of interesting writing. “There is a principle of writing so important, so fundamental that it can be appropriately called the First Law of Journalism and it is simply this: be interesting,” wrote Benton Patterson, a former Guideposts editor and author of Write To Be Read.4 The book you are holding includes “Action, Angle and Anecdotes” as a subtitle because we believe that lively action, a fresh, creative angle and lots of anecdotes characterize interesting writing that keeps readers reading.