Saying What We See

Expression number one

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The Raven Trimmed and Musicalized and Then the Whole Thing

 From The Philosophy of Composition

 I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would — that is to say, who could — detail, step by step, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such [column 2:] a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say — but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers — poets in especial — prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy — an ecstatic intuition — and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought — at the true purposes seized only at the last moment — at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view — at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable — at the cautious selections and rejections — at the painful erasures and interpolations — in a word, at the wheels and pinions — the tackle for scene-shifting — the step-ladders and demon-traps — the cock’s feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio. I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pell-mell, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner. For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time, the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions; and, since the interest of an analysis, or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together. I select “The Raven,” as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referrible either to accident or intuition — that the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem. Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem per se, the circumstance — or say the necessity — which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste.

Will Print Magazines Survive?

The BBC says maybe. 

A research project also says maybe.

Writing a Feature Story using the Wall Street Journal Formula

*The Wall Street Journal Formula(WSJ) is the most commonly used method of writing feature stories. This method consist of four basic sections.

1.) The story opens with an anecdotal, descriptive, or narrative lead (specific examples)
2.) The nut graf follows the lead and generally explains the lead
3.) The body of the story is supporting information (quotes, facts, developments)
4.) The ending includes another anecdotal or description of the people/person featured in the story

An example of this is in an Washington Post article titled, "6,473 Texts a Month, But at What Cost?".The story can be identified as the WSJ formula because of the following sections.
 

1. ( LEAD) "Julie Zingeser texts at home, at school, in the car while her mother is driving. She texts during homework, after pompon practice and as she walks the family dog. She takes her cellphone with her to bed." -anecdotal lead that gave specific examples about Julie's texting

2.(NUT GRAF) Paragraphs 2-4 -explained the lead and let the story shift to the larger purpose.

3. (BODY) The Body of the story looks more in-depth at how text messaging is affecting teenager's social development. -uses many statistics from psychology studies, quotes from doctors, psychiatrists, technology experts and other teenagers

4. (ENDING) "Still, she doubts she will change her text life anytime soon. "When I don't have my phone with me," she said, "I feel out of the loop." -ends with the person featured in the story. Julie, and gives the reader more details on the future of Julie's texting.

The Value of Feature-style Writing

One of the most thought-provoking discoveries from the Impact study is the importance of writing style. Feature-style writing is found to increase satisfaction in a variety of topic areas: politics, sports, science, health, home and food among them. A higher proportion of feature-style stories also improves overall brand perception, chief among them how "easy to read" the newspaper is. When we talk about "feature-style" writing, we don't mean "feature stories." We're not describing a story type but a writing style, also called narrative writing. When Readership Institute analysts evaluated newspaper writing, they classified it one of three ways: inverted pyramid (or news style), commentary and feature-style. Inverted pyramid stories are the traditional news stories. They begin with the most important element of the story, then present related facts in order of decreasing importance. Stylistically, inverted pyramid stories follow a fact 1, fact 2, fact 3 format from start to finish. Commentary is characterized by its authorial voice, usually presented in a signed column, review, criticism, advice column, op-ed piece or editorial. Feature-style writing encompasses a broad range of writing techniques, all of which share a few common elements. The writing is more narrative and stories are told with a beginning, middle and end. Stories are often told through the characters or using anecdotes to help illustrate the events. They also tend to use more colorful language, are sometimes more playful, and usually engage the reader more than a traditional news story does. A concern editors commonly express is that feature-style writing means "softening" or "dumbing down" the news. "Feature-style" is not a euphemism or proxy for "soft news" in the research results. It is a description of a writing style. Writers can use feature-style writing to cover hard news stories without compromising the stories' informational value or focus. Here is an example of two approaches to covering a breaking news story; the first is a traditional inverted pyramid approach, the second uses a feature-style approach. Inverted Pyramid Approach Some boos at graduation after judge bars prayer Associated Press May 21, 2001 WASHINGTON, Ill. -- A top student who gave a traditional farewell speech at a high school graduation was booed and another student was applauded for holding a moment of silence after a judge barred prayer at the ceremony. A federal judge issued a restraining order days before Sunday's ceremony at Washington Community High School blocking any student-led prayer. It was the first time in the 80-year history of the school that no graduation prayers were said. Natasha Appenheimer, the class valedictorian, traditionally a top student chosen to give the class graduation speech, was booed when she received her diploma. Her family, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, had filed the lawsuit that led to the restraining order. Meanwhile, some stood and applauded class speaker Ryan Brown when he bowed his head for a moment of silence before his speech. (Clickhere for complete story.) Feature-style Approach School Ceremony Downstate Under U.S. Court Order By John Chase Chicago Tribune May 21, 2001 WASHINGTON, Ill. -- It was not the words graduating senior Ryan Brown spoke at Washington Community High School commencement services on Sunday that resonated in this small town just outside of Peoria. It was what he did before he spoke. Walking to the podium inside the gymnasium as a scheduled speaker, Brown paused, stepped to the side of the stage, folded his hands and bowed his head in a silent prayer. The gymnasium crowd of more than 1,000 students and adults erupted in cheers, with some standing to applaud while others blew air horns in celebration. For the first time in this school's 80-year history, no prayer was heard publicly during graduation services, following a federal judge's ruling last week prohibiting it after the class valedictorian, Natasha Appenheimer, and her family obtained a temporary restraining order against the public school district. (Click here for complete story.) Newspapers in the United States use inverted pyramid style for 69 percent of all stories, feature-style writing for 18 percent, and commentary for 12 percent. While inverted pyramid style is appropriate for most stories, nonetheless there is strong evidence that an increase in the amount of feature-style stories has wide-ranging benefits. For example, newspapers that write more feature-style politics stories have readers who express higher satisfaction with their politics coverage. Considering that only 5 percent of all politics stories are written in feature-style, even one additional feature-style politics story per week would make a difference. Beyond increasing satisfaction with particular content areas, feature-style writing also improves positive brand perception. Newspapers that run more feature-style stories are seen as more honest, fun, neighborly, intelligent, "in the know" and more in touch with the values of readers. Women, in particular, respond to feature-style writing. This preference is more than just a desire for "feature" topics such as health, fashion and travel (which also tend to be written in a feature-style). It's the papers that incorporate feature-style writing in a broad range of topics that see the most benefit in brand perception, in addition to doing more of the traditional "feature" topics. Feature-style writing encompasses many writing styles and the Readership Institute continues to explore what the implications are for reporters and editors. What is clear is that many stories can be written in a feature style without increasing length or compromising informational value.

Nut Grafs and Magazine Stories

Academic essays have a focus statement. News stories have a nut graf, often only a sentence long. (News stories usually have very short paragraphs.) Magazine/Feature stories may have a focus statement or a nut graf. Or they may not. What they *always* have is a point of view (POV), a ruling attitude, an inclination, a world view, a shape that influences readers. Some writers don’t think ahead. They simply proceed by association, one thing suggesting another until the writer runs out of things to say or space in which to say it. But somewhere in such stories a reader will find a central thrust, even if it is that the world is a very confusing place, at least to the writer.

I don’t find the story-by-accident very appealing. Therefore, in this course I am asking you to tell me what, in your opinion, the point of your story is. You may if you wish put that point high in the story in the form of a thesis sentence:

Cyril de Mawbry met many people during those mad early days in San Francisco, some that delighted him and some that repelled him. But three in particular fixed in his mind an idea of America’s perils and promises that guides him still.

Or you may wish to proceed indirectly, attempting to “show” your reader information that, you are confident, will lead the reader to a POV toward your material without her/his being instructed what that POV should be. That’s fine with me. But I want you to tell me what you want the reader to conclude as a result of your clever writing. That is, even if you don’t have a focus statement inside your story, I want you to write it down for me *outside* the story.

Does this mean you should outline your story in the explicity manner Jon Franklin suggests, as you will discover when we read him? Not necessarily. You may enjoy writing in a loose associational manner and only *after the fact* discovering what your point is. If that’s the way you work, you are probably going to need to prune the story afterwards to improve focus, and that approach may be more labor intensive. Still, whatever works for you.

Bottom line: Either inside or outside the story will be a statement of what your story is intended to mean, or even – and here the waters are deep – what you have discovered it to mean. If that statement is outside the story, you may want to say something about the structure of the story and the clever way in which you guided your reader.

The Rule of Three: Two Approaches

Remember the Tricolon

By Maeve Maddox

A tricolon is a rhetorical device that employs a series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses. The word derives from Greek tri (“three”) + colon (“section of a sentence”). The plural of tricolon is tricola.

Julius Caesar’s famous “Veni, vidi, vici” is a tricolon consisting of three verbs. The tricolon is phrased in ascending order, culminating with the most important action: “I came, I saw, [and] I conquered.”

Churchill’s famous line in praise of the Royal Air Force repeats a “so” phrase: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Phrased in descending order or with an unexpected combination of words, a tricolon can be used for humorous effect, as in this quotation ascribed to Dorothy Parker: “I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.”
Tricola are at work in the answers to these two questions:

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
—Practice, practice, practice.
What are the three things that matter in property?
—Location, location, location.

Quotations that remain in the memory long after one’s school days often contain tricola:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
of the people, by the people, for the people
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Many of our idioms, clichés, and fossilized legal phrases take the form of tricola:

Every Tom, Dick and Harry
Lock, stock, and barrel
Wine, women, and song
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Advertisers and PR agents understand the power of the tricola:

Power, beauty, and soul (Aston Martin)
Keeps going and going and going. (Energizer)
Grace…space…pace. (Jaguar)
Snap! Crackle! Pop! (Rice Krispies)
Buy it. Sell it. Love it. (Ebay)
Thinner, lighter, and faster. (iPad2)
Stop, Look, and Listen (Traffic safety slogan)
Drop, Cover, and Hold On (Earthquake/tornado safety slogan)

One of the most useful aspects of this rhetorical device is its effectiveness in embedding a thought in the memory.

The Rule of Three
A humor technique from the world of comedy.

There is a useful joke structure in humor writing called the rule-of-three. Here's an example of the rule-of-three which I've used as the greeting on my telephone answering machine: "Sorry I can't personally answer the phone. I'm either motivating thousands of people, appearing on the Oprah show...or taking a nap. Please leave a message and I'll return your call when I wake up."

Here's what makes the rule of three work:

A funny line is sometimes said to be like a train wreck. You know where the train (your train of thought) has been, you think you know where it's going, but then you're surprised when it goes off track. The same sort of thing happens when you see the unexpected slip on the banana peel. The surprise or twist helps build the tension to create and magnify the humor.

The rule-of-three structure sets a pattern like the train coming down the tracks. You'll see a similar principle in action in a two-person comedy act. The straight person sets up the pattern which the funny person's punchline will break. The rule-of-three structure uses this same structure. The first two items in the triplet set the pattern (the "straight" line) and the third item breaks the pattern (the curve/the twist/the derailment). Breaking the pattern heightens the tension and creates the surprise, usually resulting in laughter. There are countless patterns you could use:

Same Category/Same Category/Different Category (T-shirt which lists world-class cities: Paris/Tokyo/Fargo).

Expected Trait/Expected Trait/Unexpected Trait (She was pretty, she was shapely, she was a man).

Something Everyone Loves/Something Everyone Loves/Something Everyone Hates (A Las Vegas wedding package contains everything you will need; music, flowers, a divorce document).

Ordinary/Ordinary/Ridiculous (I go to Las Vegas to see the shows, eat at the buffets and visit my money).

Extreme/Extreme/Ordinary (Speaking to thousands, appearing on Oprah, taking a nap)

Rhyme/Rhyme/Rhyme (rhyming sets a pattern and can disguise or add a special twist to the third-item punchline). Here's an example I created for a 50th birthday party using the "answer first then the question" vehicle which Johnny Carson made famous. "The answer is…Three things that describe Suzie Smith. And the question is…what are Nifty, Thrifty and Fifty." This example also uses the category Something Good/Something Good/Something Not So Good (people don't want to get older). I could have used the word Shifty as one of the first two words, but that would have been less effective setting the proper pattern.

Why three? It's just one of those tried and true rules of comedy. It's a rhythm that works. It's part of the music of the humor structure. Experiment and you'll find it's true...a series of three almost always works better than a series of two or four.

Use the rule-of-three technique and it will become a natural part of your humor tool kit. You'll find yourself to be funnier, you'll connect better with your audiences, and in only fifteen years you'll become an overnight success.

Copyright 2006 by John Kinde

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"Copyright by John Kinde, who is a humor specialist in the training and speaking business for over 30 years specializing in teambuilding, customer service and stress management. Free Special Reports: Show Me The Funny -- Tips for Adding Humor to Your Presentations and When They Don't Laugh -- What To Do When the Laughter Doesn't Come. Humor Power Tips newsletter, articles and blog are available at www.humorpower.com."