Secrets of Narrative Writing -- Lower Your Expectations
By D. Parvaz
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

St. Petersburg, Fla. Sept. 18 -- Narrative is...(what is it? Finish this thought later). But whatever it is, Poynter's Christopher "Chip" Scanlan said you gotta have it in order to transform a piece into a story.

What's the difference between a story and a piece? Narrative. (Crap, this is sounding circular -stop chasing your own tail, D!) Okay, Scanlan said that a piece is a piece when you only stick to one end of the writing spectrum - civic clarity or responsibility. Just the facts ma'am. It's giving the reader addresses instead of settings and sources instead of characters. So how do you get out of this rut of making readers feel like what they're reading is one step above a police blotter? Get past the internal gatekeeper, stop stopping yourself. Start every story with a free-writing experiment -- write and write until it makes sense. And don't sweat what your editor wants. Let the editor deal with what you've got. Sure, you need approval, or as Scanlan puts it "a pat on the head" (am I this needy? Must ask editor), but the key to not being so hard on ourselves is simple, said Scanlan.

"Lower your expectations."

A stunned silence gave way to chuckles. A license to tune down what Scanlan referred to as the "You Suck FM" soundtrack reporters have their brains tuned into (does this guy know me, or am I that common?) Not being so hard on ourselves allows us to, hopefully, achieve literary grace. And that, said Scanlan, is what transforms a piece into a story. "We're hardwired for stories...we know them where we hear them," said Scanlan.

Then he got us to write one in a free-writing exercise (he gave us a few minutes to write non-stop about a medical emergency - great. Of all the things to write about, I wrote about that time I split my knee open on railroad tracks in the middle of nowhere. Weak). Along with a room full of frantic scribblers, Denise Joyce, an editor at the Chicago Tribune, wrote fast to get past her inner gate keeper. The result? A briskly paced, urgent story of her daughter, Amanda, injuring herself while in Europe. The exercise was brief, but it produced quite a bit of text. And if by 9:20 a.m. every day, a reporter could churn out 15 inches of text, however free-form and jumbled, Scanlan said he was certain that reporter would feel giddy enough to go out and get drunk (a tad un-pc-wonder if editor will allow saucy comment to stay?). After writing ourselves free of the shackles of self-doubt (Gag. Trying too hard) and trying to infuse our work with the details and elements to make it a story, Chris Beringer, an assistant managing editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wanted to know if a piece had to be long in order to be a story.

"No," replied Scanlan. "'For Sale: Baby's shoes. Never Worn.' That's your story right there."

D. Parvaz is a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter and a 2003 fellow. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .