Getting Involved in Your Story

[Mayfly]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/the_bonus/08/01/mannix.fight/index.html

I finished reading this piece on SI.com, and I began to think. Do you get more out of a story by investing a lot of time and getting involved in it? I guess that answer is a no-brainer, but I believe some of the better writing I have read recently involves a writer becoming their subject. Tom Verducci was an umpire during a game to tell the story from their side and this one, where Mannix fights a featherweight champion. I always thought about doing this. Is this the new way of journalism, because it seems to be effective.

 

[jgmacg]

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

Personally, I hate it.

Why does the reader care what I did?

We've run three "personal" columns this week at our paper and they all sucked and had several reporters around the office asking "what makes these people think the general public cares about our personal experiences and our lives?"

If you're going to do it/write it, it better be damn good (i.e. Plimpton)

This stuff won't work in a newspaper.

 

[Starman]

Personally, I hate it.

Why does the reader care what I did?

We've run three "personal" columns this week at our paper and they all sucked and had several reporters around the office asking "what makes these people think the general public cares about our personal experiences and our lives?"

If you're going to do it/write it, it better be damn good (i.e. Plimpton)

This stuff won't work in a newspaper.

We have one ****ing idiot at our shop who keeps trying to sell this stuff. Playing softball, playing hockey, playing golf, playing basketball, playing tennis, playing frisbee, playing touch football, riding bikes, kayaking, cross-country skiiing, and a partridge in a pear tree. He starts every interoffice conversation with, "Not to brag, but I'm a really good athlete, you know."

He's a copy editor on the universal desk, so he floats these stories for news, sports and features. He usually goes to the ME, EE or publisher, all of whom he shamelessly brownnoses, and tries to sell it as "great human interest." Straight over the heads of the department editors involved. His favorite ploy is to try to sneak them in when the department editor is on vacation, bulldozing/bull****ting assistants into putting them on the budget.

He's got four or five of them in the can. He bull****s the ME or publisher into giving him the go-ahead to do the story, then he lets them fester in the can for a month or so while he's "doing touch-up work" on them.

When he does manage to slip one of these manifestos into the paper, it's invariably a) 60-80 inches long with sidebars etc etc., b) accompanied with 15-20 photos or graphics, all featuring him (the photogs report he specifies this), and c) written in an insufferably pompous, smug and condescending manner: "Most weekend athletes cannot hope to succeed at such an advanced level, yet I find myself dominating play" and comparing himself to superstars such as Kobe, Jordan and Tiger Woods. Oh yes, and d) for each story, he requests/demands/finagles about a full week off from his normal newsroom duties for "research" and "writing" time. OHHHHHHHHH yes, and e) he hovers over the back of the people laying it out on the page, effectively giving him "final cut" of the finished product.

After the appearance of each installment in this intermittent series, we get a peppering of reader letters, mostly saying "we don't ****ing care."

I take great pleasure on going Darth Vader on it in the news meetings. "Nobody ****ing cares, dude."

ZZZzzzz-whoomp.

 

[buckweaver]

If you're going to do it/write it, it better be damn good (i.e. Plimpton)

This stuff won't work in a newspaper.

If it's good, it will work.

The best writer I've ever worked with was a master at "participatory journalism." His columns were almost always compelling, often off the beaten path (or at least a different way of looking at a mainstream subject), and they usually kept the focus on the experts or sources who were there to help him get the handle of what he was doing. It was fun to read and fun to edit, and he seemed to have fun writing them.

He had a (mostly) weekly column for this stuff, and it was outstanding. Won quite a few awards -- local, state, Gannett and APSE -- for the several years I worked with him, and made a huge impression on me as a cub reporter at the time.

 

[Walter Burns]

I think Jim Backus put it best in "Deadline USA:"
Do you want to be a journalist or a reporter?
What's the difference?
A reporter tells the story. A journalist makes himself part of the story.

 

[jgmacg]

Having made the nod earlier to Mr. Plimpton and "Paper Lion," I wanted to be sure that our younger writers know where Plimpton got his ideas about "participatory journalism."

Paul Gallico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gallico

 

[novelist_wannabe]

I've done a couple of feature pieces like that ... sort of Mike Rowe before there was a Mike Rowe. I think it makes you more informed as a writer.

On the other hand, there was the stuff I saw from the CNN crew in MSP yesterday. They interviewed this dude in a wheelchair who was stuck in his van on the bridge. Near the end of the piece, the reporter says, "We interviewed him at home, and he's having difficulty getting around, because his van was still on the bridge. So we gave him a ride to his doctor's appointment."

Sure, decent human thing to do. But was it really necessary to include that tidbit in the piece?

 

[Eagleboy]

Does anybody have a link to the Verducci stories? I've looked and can't seem to find them and didn't know if anyone would have a better idea where I could.

For his efforts, the story is interesting. I think part of it is because I heard about him doing it early on, so catching up with it now was pretty good.

Mayfly, if you haven't seen it, check out the impressively-titled "What Goes Ninety-Five Miles per Hour for Seventeen Days Straight Through Mud, Sand, High-Speed Smash-ups, and Marauding Bandits?" by Jonathan Miles in the 2006 Best American Sports Writing. Best story in the edition - about a guy going on the Dakar Rally.

 

[Write-brained]

The only time this works is if you're getting access to something the public doesn't usually get to see. That's why Verducci's umpire story worked - we rarely get to see behind the scenes of the umpire world.

Writing a first-person story about Ultimate frisbee or what have you is just masturbation.

 

[TyWebb]

I'm taken a crack at stories like this and I think if done right, these stories can work. What I tried to focus on was the subject and describing him/her in the middle of competition. The fact that he/she was competing against me was kind of a minor detail.

But when a writer injects too much of himself in the story, making about how I did this and I did that, then it is absolutely masturbation.

 

[Tom Petty]

Personally, I hate it.

Why does the reader care what I did?

We've run three "personal" columns this week at our paper and they all sucked and had several reporters around the office asking "what makes these people think the general public cares about our personal experiences and our lives?"

If you're going to do it/write it, it better be damn good (i.e. Plimpton)

This stuff won't work in a newspaper.

We have one ****ing idiot at our shop who keeps trying to sell this stuff. Playing softball, playing hockey, playing golf, playing basketball, playing tennis, playing frisbee, playing touch football, riding bikes, kayaking, cross-country skiiing, and a partridge in a pear tree. He starts every interoffice conversation with, "Not to brag, but I'm a really good athlete, you know."

He's a copy editor on the universal desk, so he floats these stories for news, sports and features. He usually goes to the ME, EE or publisher, all of whom he shamelessly brownnoses, and tries to sell it as "great human interest." Straight over the heads of the department editors involved. His favorite ploy is to try to sneak them in when the department editor is on vacation, bulldozing/bull****ting assistants into putting them on the budget.

He's got four or five of them in the can. He bull****s the ME or publisher into giving him the go-ahead to do the story, then he lets them fester in the can for a month or so while he's "doing touch-up work" on them.

When he does manage to slip one of these manifestos into the paper, it's invariably a) 60-80 inches long with sidebars etc etc., b) accompanied with 15-20 photos or graphics, all featuring him (the photogs report he specifies this), and c) written in an insufferably pompous, smug and condescending manner: "Most weekend athletes cannot hope to succeed at such an advanced level, yet I find myself dominating play" and comparing himself to superstars such as Kobe, Jordan and Tiger Woods. Oh yes, and d) for each story, he requests/demands/finagles about a full week off from his normal newsroom duties for "research" and "writing" time. OHHHHHHHHH yes, and e) he hovers over the back of the people laying it out on the page, effectively giving him "final cut" of the finished product.

After the appearance of each installment in this intermittent series, we get a peppering of reader letters, mostly saying "we don't ****ing care."

I take great pleasure on going Darth Vader on it in the news meetings. "Nobody ****ing cares, dude."

ZZZzzzz-whoomp.

so does JVD buy rounds after you get the paper out?

 

[Faithless]

I'm taken a crack at stories like this and I think if done right, these stories can work. What I tried to focus on was the subject and describing him/her in the middle of competition. The fact that he/she was competing against me was kind of a minor detail.

But when a writer injects too much of himself in the story, making about how I did this and I did that, then it is absolutely masturbation.

Another way to do this ... Use the print product to report on the story, then use your blog to give the first-person side of the story (how the story came about, your interaction with the subject, etc.)

I tried to inject myself into a story on two very hot local college girls preparing for the state pageant, only to wind up masturbating.

 

[Some Guy]

These stories can work, but it's kind of like walking a tight rope over the Grand Canyon.

If done right, these stories can by magnificent.
If done wrong, it's an out-and-out disaster.

And the line between one or the other isn't very thick.

 

[silentbob]

"Why does the reader care what I did?"

Why does a friend listen to your stories? Why do people at sportsjournalist.com read your anonymous posts?

Because people want to know about other people. If you write about coaching your son's baseball team, people want to know about your experience and compare it with their own. If you write about fishing in the Florida Keys, people want to know what that's like. If your write about your mortgage, people will read it for no other reason than to think "HA! I got a better loan than that guy."

This is one of the out-dated "rules" in journalism. Yes, it can be overdone. Yes, it can be done poorly (as if game stories and features cannot.) But I've worked at four newspapers in my life and the only first-person bickering I've heard is from ... people in the same newsroom. Never has a reader called, email, written, sent a pigeon with a note, saying anything along the lines of "Why do I care about your life?"

If you don't believe me, ask the people who have written first-persons. I bet 9 times out of 10, they'll tell you they got more feedback from that column/story than anything else.

 

[CentralIllinoisan]

I did this a couple of years ago and learned some things in the process. I aimed to take part in our area's top high school football team's two-a-days for the first three days.

I lasted one.

It was hard; I was old and fat and tired -- and after one column -- was sick of writing about myself. The next two days I did seperate pieces on the coaching staff and one on the players, the first delving into the coaching staff's methods and those methods' place in the program's success; the second piece on the tradition shrouding the program and these players' place in it.

I will say, without taking the stab and mixing it up with the players on Day 1, I don't get the stuff I do in Days 2 and 3. All in all, a good experience. If you wish, the column from the first day is below.


_________________________________________

Five-thirty came early Wednesday morning.

The knots in my stomach made me sick. I hadn't got much sleep the night before, worrying if I could handle what was ahead.

Football season. Conditioning. Hard work.

Thousands of kids across Illinois were out there Wednesday, hurting, sweating (with the temperature in the 60s, maybe not) - all for the good of the home team. About 120 of those players were on the practice fields at Metamora. From freshman to varsity, I was there with them.

I am certainly not a football player, but I play one in the newspaper.

I had to be at Metamora High School by 7:45 a.m., dressed and ready to work. The thought of spending the day as part of one of the state's most decorated programs - conditioning, working, trying to be part of the team - made my insides hurt.

After about five hours of practice, not only my insides hurt. My back hurt. My knees hurt. My feet hurt. I hurt. A few hours on the practice field made my 26 years of life feel like 56. I quickly was reminded why I quit football late my freshman year at Limestone. This is hard. One could say part of the reason I came to work out with Metamora was to exorcise some football demons.

Well, if they weren't exorcised, they certainly were exercised.

ON THE FIELD

I thought I had grown up so much since graduating high school in 1996. Grown up so much since graduating from Illinois State University in 2001. Grown up so much since getting married the following year.

I was wrong. While I thought I'd be headstrong at practice, I slipped back into what felt like the old high school hierarchy. I didn't feel like I should be on the field. I was out of place. Most other players were dressed in black shorts, black shoes. There I was, a 6-foot-1 sore thumb, dressed in red shorts and red and white shoes. Nice. Way to be the chameleon.

And if I hadn't already stuck out enough, early during the first condition session of the first practice, I felt something in my left shoe. A small plastic piece on the inside my cleats -- which I thought I'd broken in -- dug into my back heel. The blister that formed broke and began to bleed. Nothing like a blister minutes into practice to remind myself of why I chose to write about this stuff and not do it. I jogged to the parking lot and changed into tennis shoes.

All in all, the first practice provided a tremendous workout for both the mind and body. After the opening conditioning, I was filed in with the sophomore running backs, and the players and I settled down to learn some plays. Despite not having the slightest clue about what language sophomore coach Curt Ryan was speaking (footballese?), I stepped in for a few plays.

Just what is 44 or 46 or Oregon or Iowa? And where was this second level to which Curt Ryan kept referring? I don't know about the players, but I already had descended there when my eyes glazed over. This was too much. But it also was too much fun. I played a left wing back, carrying out fakes in what has become a classic Redbirds three-back formation.

I played wide receiver, catching just one pass thrown my way.

EXPECTATIONS

All in all, the day was extremely demanding. These days are reviled by the uninitiated (me) and crucial for the true football players (these kids). I had visions of two-hour sprints and non-stop conditioning, so when I finished I thought: This could have been harder. Should it have been?

Not really.

While I got by letting offensive verbiage sail over my head, the kids out there could not. They got a workout for the entire body - even above the shoulders. What I did Wednesday is like joining a construction crew as it installs drywall in a new house. Sure, the work is hard, but I wasn't there for the pouring of the foundation; I wasn't there for the wiring or plumbing; I didn't help put on the roof.

Most of these kids have conditioned all summer and came into Wednesday in great shape. Some had been working out since before their families served Thanksgiving dinner last year. They all certainly were in better shape than the guy in the white No. 14 practice jersey from the local newspaper, standing around and getting in the way.

If two practices are any indication, there's no magic formula to Metamora's success. It's hard work. It's dedication.

"We don't have any secrets," coach Pat Ryan said. "And I can't really explain it. We're just doing what we've always been doing."

Over the next two days I'll try explain what Ryan couldn't in a few words. I've explored the workouts. Next, I'll explore the coaching, then the players. Not sure if I'll succeed in my mission, but I'll observe and report.

I'll work hard. I'll be dedicated. Well, maybe I did fit in more than I first believed.

 

[GuessWho]

When David Whitley was in San Antonio, he dressed up as the Coyote mascot for a Spurs game and wrote a damn entertaining story about it (obligatory no I'm not him). Gotta be real careful with these things, but when done well they can be worth it.

 

[Rhody31]

Since being at my new job, I wrote a story about the pressures of playing in tournament golf. I played in the state amateur qualifier and wrote a story I thought came out pretty good.
So far, lots of good words from readers on it, even from outside the area.

 

[anonymousprick]

I've likewise found the only people who tend to ask "who the f-- wants to read about you?" are bitter old farts in the newsroom, the type who feel compelled to do things certain ways because that's how they did it in 1954.

 

[Some Guy]

If you write about coaching your son's baseball team, people want to know about your experience and compare it with their own. If you write about fishing in the Florida Keys, people want to know what that's like. If your write about your mortgage, people will read it for no other reason than to think "HA! I got a better loan than that guy."

This can be true in certain circumstances. But you better damn well make sure your story is interesting.

Nothing worse than being stuck in your neighbor's living room, watching slides of his boring-ass vacation. A lot of these first-person stories can come off in the same way.

So yes, it can be done. But you better make sure you do it well.