Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page i WRITING FEATURE STORIES Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page ii Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page iii WRITING FEATURE STORIES How to research and write newspaper and magazine articles Matthew Ricketson Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page iv Every effort has been made by the author and publisher to contact copyright holders of materials quoted extensively. Unacknowledged copyright holders should contact the publisher with any queries. First published in 2004 Copyright © Matthew Ricketson 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication entry: Ricketson, Matthew, 1958– Writing feature stories: how to research and write newspaper and magazine articles. Includes index. ISBN 1 86508 732 7. 1. Authorship 2. Feature writing. I. Title. 808.066 Typeset in 11/14 pt RotisSerif by Midland Typesetters Printed and bound in Singapore by CMO Image Printing Enterprise 10987654321 Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page v CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii INTRODUCTION ix 1. WHAT EXACTLY IS A FEATURE STORY? 1 2. THE VARIETY OF FEATURE STORIES 13 3. CROSSING THE BRIDGE FROM MEDIA CONSUMER TO MEDIA PRACTITIONER 33 4. GENERATING FRESH STORY IDEAS 55 5. SPEND HALF AN HOUR PLANNING NOW, SAVE HALF A DAY LATER 71 ‘This man raped two little girls . .’ 84 The story behind the story: Pamela Bone 91 6. GATHERING THE RAW MATERIAL 95 7. THE SUBTLE AND SLIPPERY ART OF INTERVIEWING 111 8. SEEING THINGS FOR YOURSELF 125 ‘The passion of John Marsden’ 134 The story behind the story: David Brearley 142 9. FINDING THE RIGHT STRUCTURE FOR THE STORY 145 10. LEADS, CLOSES AND THAT BIG LUMP IN THE MIDDLE 165 11. WORDCRAFT 185 ‘Pol Pot Park’ 204 The story behind the story: Kimina Lyall 209 12. EDITING YOUR STORY AND WORKING WITH EDITORS 213 13. LOOKING AHEAD...TO LITERARY JOURNALISM 227 ‘Hope lives here’ 238 The story behind the story: Garry Linnell 251 APPENDIX 254 GLOSSARY 263 NOTES 265 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING 275 INDEX 281 Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page vi Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has been a long time coming. I remember solemnly promis- ing to write it during the interview for my current job—in 1995. Other things got in the way—another book, a masters degree—but with the gentle prodding of colleagues in other journalism schools and Elizabeth Weiss at Allen & Unwin, it is finally finished. It is a truism that books are collaborative projects in disguise, but for a book about writing this is especially true. To begin with, I’d like to acknowledge Geoff Slattery whose sports journalism (particularly a profile of Lou Richards) first showed me what was possible in journalistic writing. Peter Ellingsen introduced me to Murray Smith who had been his first editor, and became mine, at the then Standard Newspapers in Cheltenham. Murray is a superb suburban editor and one of the nicest blokes you could hope to meet in a newsroom. Three other editors who helped me a lot were Neil Mitchell at The Age, Steve Foley at The Australian and Jeff Penberthy at Time Australia. I have been fortunate to work with and learn from many fine journalists, beginning with fellow cadets at The Age in 1982, and later including: Paul Austin; Paul Chadwick; Philip Chubb; Debi Enker; Gideon Haigh; Phillipa Hawker; Damien Murphy; Andrew Rule; John Schauble; Cameron Stewart; Ros Smallwood and Jane Sullivan. At RMIT University, the considerable support granted to me by the School of Applied Communication provided time to write the book. I appreciate the university’s commitment to encouraging staff to reflect on their craft and their profession and to pass on findings in books such as this, which, it is hoped, will help strengthen links between industry and the academy. Many students in many feature writing classes have influenced this book through their questions, their ideas and their candidly expressed views about my stories. Colleagues in the Journalism program team have taken a keen interest, especially fellow feature writing lecturers, John Hurst, who generously lent me his own extensive work on the area, and Sybil Nolan and Muriel Porter, who both read the manuscript and made valuable comments. I would like to Acknowledgements vii Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page viii thank the six journalists (Pamela Bone, David Brearley, Jon Casimir, Fiona Hudson, Garry Linnell and Kimina Lyall) who gave permission for their features to be reproduced in this book and who contributed the excellent stories behind their stories. Sarah Hudson and Chris Tatman also provided stories about their stories, but in the end, for space reasons, I was unable to include them. Thanks nevertheless. At Allen & Unwin, thanks go to in-house editor, Catherine Taylor, and to the educational publisher, Elizabeth Weiss, for her support and her coolly incisive intelligence. At home, thanks as always go to my children Gemma, Hayley and Josh and my darling wife Gill. viii Writing Feature Stories Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page ix INTRODUCTION A writer says: read what I have written An historian says: listen to my lecture A critic says: listen to what I think A journalist says: let me tell you a story. Gideon Haigh Novelists know the terror of the blank page; journalists know the terror of deadlines. Novelists have to create something out of nothing; without their imagination the page remains blank. Journalists have to find the news and test its accuracy; miss the deadline and they may as well have stayed in bed. And feature writers—what about feature writers? Wherever they turn they see paradox. They’re not novelists but they are asked to do something more than simply report the news of the day. They are given licence to be creative but they are still jour- nalists and are still writing about the real world. They have to meet deadlines but not necessarily daily deadlines. Is it any wonder people get confused about feature writing? As a young journalist I vividly remember feeling confused when I was first asked to write features. I had grasped the essentials of the news story (‘The Prime Minister yesterday called an election, after weeks of intense speculation . .’) but that was only after it was drilled into me by dint of repeated practice in a newsroom. Now editors were asking for pieces much longer than the customary 600-word (or ‘twelve snappy pars’ as they were called) news stories. They told me they wanted background, they wanted colour, they wanted to run ‘long reads’. So I started gathering more information, reading reports, visiting places, interviewing people, and much of what I gathered was good stuff. I enjoyed interviewing and most people seemed happy enough to talk. I loved words and I had this idea I could write. The problem was, I had no idea how to put together a feature, no idea how to start it and no idea how to order the mass of raw material that sprawled across my desk and onto the floor. Nowhere was this more painfully evident than in writing a profile of Frank Vitkovic, the 22-year-old man who in 1987 walked into the Introduction ix Writing Feature Stories -pages 1/12/03 2:20 PM Page x Australia Post building in Queen Street, Melbourne, armed with a sawn-off M1 carbine, and killed eight innocent people and then himself. I covered the coronial inquest the next year, taking notes on the 115 witnesses’ evidence and writing daily news stories for The Australian, where I was on staff. I was asked by the editor of the news- paper’s colour magazine to profile Vitkovic for the first anniversary of the shootings. By the end of the coronial inquest I had filled five notebooks and separately interviewed several key players, including coroner Hal Hallenstein, QC. In the newsroom I could speak authori- tatively about the inquest’s every detail but when I sat down to write I was struck dumb. Swimming in information, I was clueless about structuring the story. The factual material should have been like an anchor—essential equipment to be stowed so the story could set sail. Trouble was, the anchor was snagged on the seabed. When the ship finally got going, it seemed someone had left the compass onshore and the story pro- ceeded painfully, frequently banging into sharp unseen objects. When land was finally sighted the captain hadn’t the faintest notion how he had reached his destination, and so was no wiser for the next feature writing journey. This went on for some years, sad to say. I did turn out some rea- sonable features but I still approached each one filled with anxiety and I still found the writing process bafflingly difficult.