Narrative Craft and Committing Time

I can't just write all facts and details.  It's boring and no one will want to read it.

So what do investigative journalists do to make their writing more enticing?

They use their narrative craft.  They use the skills they have when writing stories to make their writing more engaging.  They use dialogue.  They describe the setting.  They offer a piece of action. They use figurative language.  They do some of  everyone of those.

That's what I had you try to do today.  I asked that you use dialogue or descriptive action or setting description to help pique your reader's interest.

Tell a brief story to help convey the important issue you are trying to get across.

Create a scene that demonstrates your issue.

Doing these things will generate more readers for your writing.  Practice more tonight if you have the chance.

Tonight I want you to commit to an issue.  You came in with five ideas on Wednesday.  You narrowed them down to two issues for today.  Tonight, commit to the one issue you want to investigate thoroughly.  In addition, write a (minimum) one page reflection on your selection.  Be sure to answer the following two questions in your reflection:

1) Of all the stories to tell, why do I want to write this one?

2) What message do I want to send my readers?

After you complete this, you'll be prepared for the next step.

Until next time...