How can I improve my game stories?

There's some good advice to be gleaned from all of these responses. The one thing I would say, based on 25 years in the experience, is this:

1. Make sure your lede is a grabber. You can draw in the casual reader with a real snappy lede, but a dull opening graph can turn off all but the fans.

2. I generally identify one play, one key moment or one key player that made the difference in the outcome. If you're paying attention, it shouldn't be hard to figure out what that key is.

3. In most cases, once I get past the nut graphs, I like to tell the story in chronological order. After all, you are writing a story about a game. Just don't let yourself get bogged down in a lot of play-by-play.

 

What he said about soccer. Once I started covering soccer -- but especially reading more soccer gamers -- I think my gamers improved. While many think it's tough to write 15 on a 1-nil soccer match, I find that to be ... not easy, but not as difficult as covering almost anyone other sport. It's real easy to find the defining moment in a 1-0 match. Sure, maybe there was a helluva save by the keeper in the last 10 minutes, but ultimately, the goal is it.

I think I've transitioned that thinking to other sports. Early in my career, I think I was overwhelmed by a 42-28 football game or an 85-69 basketball game ... not really sure where to start.

At the same time, covering 1-nil soccer matches forced me to look at tactical decisions by coaches. Instead of only saying what happened, I learned (or was forced) to look at why it happened and how it happened.

 

That's really good stuff, slap.

 

I cover soccer from the sideline as well. It's not like there's a staggering number of stats you have to keep up with, and I've found some soccer coaches even like to have somebody down there as company while the game's going on. For someone who doesn't know a lot about soccer, they give you some pretty valuable information during the game.

I guess I'm not good enough at keeping stats to cover football games from the sideline.

Being so close to the action is why I like covering basketball more than anything else. All the interaction between the refs and coaches/players and coaches/players and refs is cool stuff that can give you a lot of insight that may be valuable for the game story.

 

Forget you're writing the story for a minute. Pretend you just met your buddies at a bar. What would you tell them?
That's how you tell a story.

 

Unless it's raining, I always walk the sideline at high school football games. You're closer to the action, you can sometimes get some inside stories you wouldn't get from the press box and it's quicker and easier to grab players and coaches for postgame interviews.

The trick I use is a two-notebook system. I keep my running play-by-play on a steno pad and my accumluated individual stats on a legal pad. It's a pretty efficient system for me.

One other thing, too. I usually try to compose my first 6-7 graphs in my head while I'm driving from the game site to the office. Of course, if you're filing from the stadium that won't work.

 

Yeah, but that doesn't get as much traffic as this board.

 

Don't tell readers the next day the obvious....Tell them something they don't know while watching cheerleaders and eating popcorn.
I look for feature writing in game stories as a positive, not a negative, Bullwinkle. You don't write a feature on the game, but you make the kids who play the game the story, not the ego-driven coaches.

 

I look for feature writing in game stories as a positive, not a negative, Bullwinkle. You don't write a feature on the game, but you make the kids who play the game the story, not the ego-driven coaches.


Ditto on that. To write a better game story, don't write a game story. Write a people story, and note that he or she played a game.

 

Agreed, particularly for covering high schools.

 

Didn't say it was a negative. Was just saying that it's probably not a good idea to get too bogged down on items that are almost certainly a mid-week feature -- such as playing backyard hoops against brother, or being inspired by a book from the fifth grade, etc. Not to say they can't be mentioned. If relevant, they can, and should, be mentioned.

Just wouldn't make it the whole story.