Telling a great story

In the next couple days I am going to post a Q&A with the writer of the Washington Post's metro crash story.

Eli Saslow, a graduate of Syracuse University, is a fantastic writer and reporter. I met him this year though a mutual friend, but was a fan of his writing before that.

One of my favorites is "In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors are Flying." His story about the son of a Redskins coach was chosen for inclusion in the 2008 edition of The Best American Sports Writing.

If you have some questions for Saslow, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail. I am going to try to send them to him by the end of the week.

Things that matter

This isn't a narrative story, but it's an important one. Gina Smith of The State in Columbia, S.C., writes about how she waited for Gov. Mark Sanford at the Atlanta airport. She was the only reporter present when he stepped off a plane from Argentina, where he'd been for four days, while staff members told the public he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

Hours later, Sanford admitted he was having an affair. As Smith writes, "I always will wonder if the story would have broken if I had failed to catch him in the airport."

Yet another example of why we need professional journalists.

How I wrote the story: Jim Seip

If you've ever found yourself trying to write a story with seemingly no way to make it good, and you were about to give up, read on.

I asked Jim Seip to tell me a bit about how he put together this story about a Steelers fan who made a connection with some military guys who were also Steelers fans, and who went through a harrowing ordeal himself.

Turns out that Jim was in that box: He knew he had to write, and it was looking ugly.

But the beautiful thing is, Jim found a way out. How he did it is great inspiration for any writer who is stuck: Keep thinking. Keep turning it over in your mind. Usually, you'll find a sliver of light, a possible way out ... and then go for it. So, here is how a talented journalist pulled that off in this story:

1. I asked Jim how/when he chose to structure the story around a series of moments:
-- Decided late on the story structure. Real late. Stared at my screen, scrapped two or three horrendous ledes and went in another direction. Here was the main problem with this story: I felt like I didn't have a strong enough story to stand on its own. John was a Steelers fan, that's the reason we wrote the story, but he had so much going on in his life I didn't know how to start it or where to go.

My line of thinking went something like this:
* In the original e-mail from Chris I looked at the story and thought I was supposed to write a quick-and-dirty feach. Chris noted the guy sent tapes over to servicemen in the Middle East. First reaction: This story is going to be terrible.
* After talking with John a few minutes, it sounded worse than terrible.
* John had no contact with the airmen since he returned to the States. John didn't even know what service the guy served in during our initial phone conversation. I found out he sent the tapes about two years ago. So I didn't think that was a strong enough theme to carry a story.
* His mother sent us his contact e-mail and, oh by the way, mentioned he had a brain bleed. A BRAIN BLEED?!?!?! I didn't know what that was, so I asked: "Uh John, did you have something called a brain bleed?"
* He had some terrible health problems, but I didn't know what that had to do with the Steelers. He told me some neat little anecdotes about himself and the Steelers, but nothing fit together.
* News Flash: The Steelers didn't nurse him back to health. I really wanted that to happen so I could tie everything together into some nice little run-on sentences. I'm not proud about this fact, but I actually asked his wife if she thought the Steelers playoff run helped him -- at all, er maybe a little. (I had to ask right? And yeah, that was a stupid question. Her reaction let me know, even though she was nice about it.) The Steelers don't perform miracles. Now I know.
* So I'm sitting at my computer. I had nothing. Well I had a bunch of little stories, but nothing really ... WAIT A MINUTE! I had a bunch of little stories, er moments, yeah moments.

I thought using the moments in a quick-hit style might tie everything together. All I needed was a sentence or two at the top to let readers know where we were going.

2. I asked Jim what he wanted to accomplish by adding "for now" to "the story ends" near the end of the piece. The point being that he could have simply written, "the story ends" and moved on.
For now -- When I hung up the phone after interviewing John the first time I knew the story would end with the Super Bowl. It's current. It helps tie everything together. It explains about his improving health and it revolves around the Steelers.

I added "for now" because there was so much more I didn't add. I didn't talk about his first day back on the job. I didn't talk about how he's buying his wife tickets to go to the Hall of Fame ceremonies in Canton, Ohio, because her favorite Steeler is being inducted. It's a thank-you gift for her. I also thought I needed to add "for now" because he's relatively early in the recovery process. He's only completing half days at work. So I was sure there was going to be a lot more going on in his life in the coming weeks. But the big reason I added "for now" is because in the lede I talked about small moments. I sort of went over the top in explaining how the little stuff adds up to a big thing -- your life -- and how that's important. So I can't say the story ends, and the moments end, and the dude ends -- unless the guy dies. The article ends because it catches us up to date with John ... for now.

3. When I read the last line -- He returned to work the next day at FES Systems in Manchester, just another happy Steelers fan happy to survive a close call. -- I thought, that's a really cool way, almost a sideways way, to tie the subject's major health problem to the danger the military Steelers fans face every day. Turns out Jim was going for something else -- and probably better, more directly tied to the events in the story -- but he came up with something that works on several levels.

Close call -- Ha, ha! Totally didn't see that connection. But it does work that way. Wow.
I wanted the phrase to have more than one meaning, but not in terms of soldiers surviving the war. I wanted it to sound like he survived his health concerns. And he -- like other Steelers fans -- "survived" a close game. Over-the-top fans are the type of people who say "we" when talking about Steelers, and I just wanted to illustrate how John was up sweating with the rest of Pittsburgh when the Steelers -- I mean, "we" -- came back and won the game in the final minute.

Great story, and story-behind-the-story

A little girl grows up neglected, left in a closet, until she's 7 years old and almost beyond hope. Then a couple adopts her, and begins to try to give her a life. Here is Lane DeGregory's story.

And here is how Lane and photographer Melissa Lyttle found the story, got the access, reported, photographed and produced the story ... and what happened when, a couple months into the reporting/photography, someone asked, 'What do you have for the web?' and their answer was, 'Nothing.' Read how they turned a negative into a positive. Great stuff for anyone who works on enterprise ... which is pretty much everyone here.

How I wrote the story: "Beware the chair," by Frank Bodani

Hey folks, with this post I'm starting a new occasional feature on the blog. I'll ask staffers to talk about how they wrote, photographed, filmed or designed a story or slideshow or video, and then post their answers.

Frank Bodani's story "Beware the chair" has just been honored by Associated Press Sports Editors and by the Keystones. I asked Frank to talk about an element of doing that story that stood out to him. Here are his thoughts:

"The key to writing the story, 'Beware the Chair,' was simply coming up with the idea. How do you find a feature on wheelchair rugby? How do you find Travis Oldhouser, the story's hero, so to speak?

It all came from a previous story I did in August of 2006. That piece featured a former local athletic director and football coach who was continuing a long recovery from a deer hunting accident that left him a quadriplegic. That gentleman made sure I talked to Oldhouser, another quadriplegic and inspiration to him.

One thing led to another.

Oldhouser told me about playing wheelchair rugby. I latched onto that tidbit but couldn't do anything with it right away because I was ready to start covering Penn State football again. And because rugby wasn't in season.

January -- almost five months away -- would be perfect, as long as I was patient enough and didn't forget.

That was the key: picking up on a tip from another story, storing it away for the perfect time, and then turning it into even a better piece.

When January came, and the rugby season was in full-swing, half of my battle was won.

The other half was making the piece come alive. That happened by allowing Oldhouser (though a quad) to drive Bil Bowden and I to one of his practices in Philadelphia. We talked to Oldhouser in his element, received a great insight into his life and the lives of his teammates, who all had unique stories.

Sometimes the writing isn't even the most important part of the story. "