Last Updated: May 26, 1999
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Good writing: Examples and ideas on
writing well
Consult your compass before starting to write
Ordering — organizing before the draft — saves time
and stress and delivers a better story
By Kevin McGrath
Your story idea paid off. Now your reporting’s done, you have plenty
of material for supporting graphics, you’ve arranged the photos. All that’s
left is to write.
Not so fast.
First, save yourself some time later on by taking a couple of minutes
to order your information.
Ordering is one of the more overlooked parts of the writing process
(idea, report, organize, draft, revise). It can intimidate or irritate
journalists who came up in the trade learning to find a lead and knock
out a quick story; they’re used to going with whatever order occurs as
they write.
More often than not, such writers spend their time waiting for the muses
to provide the lead, the next graf or the next point, then revise and move
blocks of copy around to conform. They revise with each succeeding inspiration
or phone call from a source, and stop when they can’t think of more to
say or move around.
Ordering excises these mental and typing gymnastics by instilling discipline
before the drafting stage.
Think of it as the roadmap of the story. The compass of creativity.
Ordering offers the writer and reader concrete benefits that make it
worth the minute or two required:
-
It tightens and executes the story’s focus in an understandable and, ideally,
pleasing way.
-
It gives the writer a sense of destination and a knowledge of when to stop.
-
It reduces the writer’s stress. You set out knowing where you’re going
rather than wandering into the underbrush of your notes and hacking your
way through to what you suppose is the end, only to realize you’ve hacked
in the wrong direction and must take a sudden right turn.
-
It makes the story more understandable for readers by taking their needs,
and their questions, into account and shaping the story accordingly. It
answers the now age-old question: What does the reader need to know, and
in what order?
The outline
Perhaps the best way to order a story is by employing what Jack Hart,
senior editor at The Oregonian, Portland, calls the jot outline: a theme
statement that uses a noun and transitive verb, followed by a list of words
or phrases that reflect each point to be made, in order.
Consider this very piece, for example. It flowed from the theme statement
"ordering tells the writer where the story’s headed," followed by a list
of the main points, and an ending. I wrote a draft to flesh out the main
themes, then revised to strengthen the wording and cut the flab. A consultation
with a couple of trusted readers, then more revision. And at least three
more revisions before publication.
You can use simpler methods, such as marking your notes in whatever
way you find handy. The point is to decide where your story’s headed before
you write.
If ordering sounds too much like your dreaded high school composition
classes, consider these words of wisdom from Strunk and White’s "The Elements
of Style":
Design informs even the simplest structure, whether of brick and
steel or of prose. You raise a pup tent from one sort of vision, a cathedral
from another. This does not mean that you must sit with a blueprint always
in front of you, merely that you had best anticipate what you are getting
into. ... But even the kind of writing that is essentially adventurous
and impetuous will on examination be found to have a secret plan: Columbus
didn’t just sail, he sailed west, and the New World took shape from this
simple and, we now think, sensible design.
That "sensible design" lurks within every story. Spend a moment or two
to find it before drafting, and you’ll save time and stress later. You’ll
thank yourself. More important, once they’ve read your well-ordered story,
your readers will thank you by coming back tomorrow for more.
McGrath is the writing coach for The Times of Munster, Ind. Call
him at 800/837-3232, ext. 3239 or
e-mail him at mcgrath@howpubs.com
