A view from the editor’s chair, Part 2

We’re glad WORLD readers found helpful the look at overall story structure we published last month as part of our Saturday Series. Today, let’s examine the four main elements of a feature story: leads, nut grafs, bodies, and endings.

Let’s lead with leads. Sometimes a reporter will have thought of one while gathering material, and the organization will flow from it. Sometimes the lead is a struggle, and reporters need to remember that in journalism the perfect is often the enemy of the good—we need to look for good beginnings, not the ideal lead.

Feature leads often try to establish a mood and convince readers that the article will be a worthwhile investment of time. Feature leads, unlike news leads, do not summarize the news. Old-style “inverted pyramid” newspaper leads and feature leads are opposites. The former makes it possible for readers to skip most of a story, while the latter pushes them to read it.

Leads come in many different flavors: Anecdotal, descriptive, situational, and multi-vignette are in the toolbox of experienced reporters. The anecdotal lead is often the best because it gives readers characters with whom to identify and actions to grasp. In directed reporting, an anecdotal lead is a specific mini-story that begins teaching the reader about the nature of the overall problem.

Here is an example from WORLD Magazine in 2016:

“Wearing a loose gray button-up shirt with a priest’s collar, 84-year-old former Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun walked down the walkway outside the Salesian Mission House in Hong Kong, where he studied as a student in 1948. With white hair, wire-framed glasses, and slightly stooped shoulders, Zen has a gentle smile reminiscent of a grandfather’s. Yet when the topic turns to the Vatican’s warming relations with Beijing, Zen passionately raises his voice, at times banging his hand on the table, at times shaking his head while exhaling ‘Ai-ya-ya-ya.’”

Good anecdotal leads arouse immediate interest, humanize what could be dry, or personalize what could be merely sensational. The anecdotal lead should be colorful but directed, accurately representing the article and pointing the reader to the rest of the story. An anecdote that is colorful but does not push readers toward deeper understanding may be used farther down, but should not be the lead. Anecdotes should be factual, not a composite or a product of the imagination.

Second on the superior list is the descriptive lead. It presents a scene without including characters or action. For example, here’s the lead of a WORLD Magazine story on how China is developing economic ties with Nigeria:

“Away from the swerving traffic and honking cars of the busy Ojota highway in Lagos, Nigeria, lies a quiet, untarred street where pedestrians walk in an unhurried pace and a middle-aged woman stirs a steaming pot on a circle of firewood, the smoke rising above her. Down the street, the typical Lagos scene suddenly ends as a red, castlelike wall looms with the words ‘China market’ written in Chinese characters over its arched entrance.”

A descriptive lead works particularly well when the writer wants to create a mood of sadness or happiness, as in this example from WORLD Magazine:

“On a hot summer’s day in Beijing’s outskirts, 2-year-old Jack carefully studies the plastic water gun in his hand. A New Day Foster Home volunteer squirts him in the leg and he squeals, then gleefully dips his own water gun into a bucket of water. Alfred, at 18 months, sits nearby on a Mickey Mouse waterproof play mat: His bowed legs prevent him from standing, yet his eyes carefully follow the flight of a stray bubble blown by another volunteer.”

Third on the superior list is the situation lead, which presents a problem that needs resolution. For example:

“It’s just after 11 p.m., and Houston police officer Al Leonard has his gun drawn as the elderly black man approaches the patrol car. The 9 mm pistol is out of sight, pointing through the car door. Leonard rolls down his window and casually greets the man: ‘What can I do for you?’ The man shakes his head in disgust. ‘Some kids,’ he says, ‘… broke my windshield. Musta been 10 or 12 of them.’ Leonard nods. ‘When did it happen?’ ‘Few minutes ago.’”

The lead leaves readers in suspense. What will Al Leonard do? The lead pushes us to read on. It is a purposefully incomplete anecdote. A situation lead should end with a sense of imminent trouble.

Fourth on the superior list is the multi-vignette lead. The use of several real examples communicates a realistic sense that many people face a similar problem. For example:

“Although she wanted more children, Janet felt that a tubal ligation—severing the fallopian tubes—was ‘the thing to do.’ Never questioning the ‘pressure from society for small families,’ she felt she had pushed the limit with three. But since then, her desire for more children has intensified—after her ability to have them was gone.”

Then, other vignettes:

“John underwent sterilization surgery because doctors warned that pregnancy might endanger his wife’s health. It nagged at him for 11 years. … Jennifer took the bus to a doctor’s office and had the option of more children surgically removed from her life. It became a decision she and her second husband later regretted.”

These stories led into the article about childbearing and adoption options.

Quantitatively and qualitatively, lead writers have great variety to choose from. The length of a lead often is tied to the length of the article—short for short, long for long. A good rule of thumb is that the lead should not be more than 10 percent of the story. The crucial point to keep in mind is that the lead should draw attention to the theme of the story, not to itself.

Lead construction is not either/or. Reporters can combine forms as long as the lead does not dither but comes to a point. For example, this lead is both descriptive and anecdotal:

“Inside a small Bedouin goods shop in Jerusalem’s Old City, the smell of strong Arab coffee cuts through the foreign aromas that have combined into a confusing but unforgettable blend. Outside the shop, a commotion.”

The reporter then shows Arab men carrying off a shirtless youth as “blood from knife-wounds flows freely.”

What comes directly after the lead goes by many names—point statement, theme-paragraph, thesis, justifier—but the traditional pungent journalistic name is “nut graf.” The nut graf is the essence, the underlying idea of a story. Generally following an anecdotal or descriptive lead, the nut graf gives the basic news value and describes the significance of the story underway. The nut graf is expository writing. After a lead that shows, the nut graf tells. The nut graf is vital because it explains the problem the story addresses and shows that it affects many people.

The nut graf is the essence, the underlying idea of a story.

Construction of a nut graf begins with the most crucial question a journalist can ask himself: What is my story about? Reporters normally have more reporting than they can use, so the answer to that nut graf question helps the reporter decide which details are important. Lack of a nut graf confuses readers and opens the door to dithering. Lack of one also wastes a good writer’s tool: Once the nut graf is in place, reporters can measure sentences and paragraphs throughout the body against it, and discard those that do not help to make the point or provide reflection upon it.

For example, here’s the nut graf following the lead from a story about New Day Foster Home and its plastic water guns:

“It’s all typical toddler’s play, yet these children may never have had the chance to enjoy that summer day without the work of New Day Foster Home. … Government orphanages, especially those in more rural areas, rarely have access to doctors who can treat severe conditions. Through New Day, though, children with diseases like hydrocephalus (water in the brain) and congenital heart disease receive the medical care, therapy, and love they need.”

Here’s the nut graf of a story about one persecuted person:

“Gao became China’s No. 2 target (after Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo) for his work as a lawyer defending house churches, the banned religious sect Falun Gong, and property owners harassed by government officials. His public opposition to the ‘inhumane, unjust, and evil’ CCP led to his detentions, first in black prisons at undisclosed locations, and then at Shaya Prison in Xinjiang. Gao says prison guards took great pains to ensure he could not hear or see anything at the official prison, afraid he would expose more abuses.”

The nut graf should be one paragraph, sometimes one sentence. For example, one sentence summarized a feature about the organization and ideology of abortion in America:

“This abortionist shortage represents the soft underbelly of the multi-million dollar industry that has grown up around the concept of choice and personal sovereignty.”

Ideally, leads flow smoothly into nut grafs.

Lead:

“In early July, authorities approached [one] church network with an ultimatum posed to thousands of other churches: … Take down the crosses on top of your churches, or else.”

Nut graf:

“It wasn’t the first time authorities had approached the church. … In February 2014, authorities asked his network of two dozen churches to take down some of the taller, more noticeable crosses from atop churches along main roads. When church leaders asked officials what law gave them authority to destroy their crosses, the officials couldn’t produce an official document and ended up leaving the churches alone.”

Ideally, a descriptive lead carries readers all the way to the nut graf. One WORLD Magazine story began:

“In Africa, mosquitoes go blood hunting after dusk. They often drift in through open windows or doors, but any crack or crevice will do. Inside, they sniff out their prey: a mother scrubbing pots after dinner, a child’s ankles as she finishes her homework.”

The next paragraph deepened the tone of inevitability:

“Bedtime is the best time for feeding. Through the quiet darkness comes a mosquito's reedy whine when it zips past your ear. But in Africa mosquitos mean more than itchy bites; just one can bring death through malaria. And trillions breed anywhere there is fresh standing water, even puddles. Sleepers sometimes use insecticide-treated bed nets as a defense—the nets often hang over floor mats, not beds—but the mesh turns stifling in the heat. Badly hung nets have gaps, and any tear renders them useless. Trying to stop every mosquito is a dead man’s game: They will find a way in.”

Then, the nut graf:

“The only winning way to fight Africa’s malarial mosquitoes is the law of the jungle: Kill them before they kill you. This is a story of how those who would save human lives lost their most effective weapon, and how some policy wonks are moving beyond their academic journals and seclusion in order to say, loud and often, give us back the weapon.”

With evocative leads and clear nut grafs, journalists are then ready to run the race by developing the body of a story. Many stories that start well become mushy in the middle, with no sequence of ideas and sensations, no pattern of cause and effect, no narrative, no pearls—just puddles. The body of the story should help readers understand what the reporter has learned while researching an article. The journalist does that by telling pointed stories, translating jargon into everyday terms, and giving a face to a fact by explaining macro matters in human terms: Let the small represent the large.

Many stories that start well become mushy in the middle, with no sequence of ideas and sensations, no pattern of cause and effect, no narrative, no pearls—just puddles.

It’s vital to keep thinking of readers, and to help them by relating the unknown to the known (for example, faraway place X is like nearby place Y). We should not overuse confusing statistics or technical information—a little goes a long way.

Keeping readers in mind is especially important when dealing with big numbers. Instead of merely mentioning that New York spent $2 billion in 10 years on 25,000 homeless persons, a reporter should do the division problem for the skimming reader and note that the per person per year expenditure was $8,000.

Logical transitions contribute to the cause of moving readers from one chunk of information to the next. Strong writers do not bury crucial information in the middle of a paragraph. Key points of emphasis are the beginnings and ends of sentences, paragraphs, and stories. The best stuff should be in the most emphatic locations.

Reader-friendly English prose places the subject before the verb and uses the active voice rather than the passive. Reporters should normally use the past tense when writing about things that have occurred. Some novice writers think that present tense is better because it supposedly makes the action more immediate, but it also can make a well-reported story sound like a breathless romance novel.

Writers who are trained in writing for newspapers or writing for children sometimes fear long sentences, on the theory that they slow down readers. Actually, a well-organized longer sentence takes no longer to read than a series of short sentences, because periods are like stop signs. The real issue is complexity of material. The more complicated the idea, the shorter the sentences and paragraphs should be, so as to slow down the reader—but a narrative sentence can be long if it is good.

The most important thing to remember throughout the body of the article is the inclusion of specific detail. Beginning writers often fall in love with their material and try to compress anecdotes and description so they can force everything in. Sometimes even experienced reporters with a lot to say cut out descriptive and narrative material so they can include all their points. But good stories require showing, not telling, and showing takes space. Selection, not compression, is the key. When in doubt the reporter should turn to the nut graf and remember the goal of telling stories in support of a central point.

One way to summarize material quickly is to quote public-policy jargon, but it’s better to place a question under a Biblical lens. For example:

“He defines behavioral poverty as a ‘cluster of social pathologies including dependency and eroding work ethic, lack of educational aspiration and achievement, inability to control one’s children, increased single parenthood and illegitimacy, criminal activity, and drug and alcohol abuse.’ In a word, sin.”

Other writing tips include: Be sure to identify in some way people quoted or cited, vary sentence structure and length, and—as T. S. Eliot said when a young writer asked for advice—when it is cold, wear long underwear. For a good, brief compilation of basic stylistic pointers regarding writing in English, the classic little book by Will Strunk and E.B. White titled The Elements of Style is unbeatable.

Endings give readers a sense of closure and a sense that the writer knows what he is doing. We need to ask ourselves what we want the reader to remember—last is often most in memory. The lead and the ending should make the same point. (Sometimes, they can be more effective if switched.) Four popular kinds of endings are the metaphorical, the next step, the nail-it-shut, and the circular. All four kinds ideally appeal to the emotions as well as to the intellect.

We need to ask ourselves what we want the reader to remember—last is often most in memory.

A metaphorical ending works well to evoke a response either by making a Biblical reference or placing the problem reported on in some other cultural context. For example, a story on a highly publicized tug-of-war concerning an adopted child ended:

“No one is proposing that the child be cut in half physically. Most people are hoping Jessica will not be sliced and diced emotionally.”

The next-step ending tells readers what happened after the time span of the article. Here is the end of a story about a woman who did abortions in China but escaped having one herself:

“As for Chi An and her family, they live in the southwestern United States. Now that Mahwae is in kindergarten, Chi An is studying for her nursing credentials. She hopes one day to work in a maternity ward, helping to deliver babies, not destroy them.”

Sometimes the next-step is literally a note about the next step:

“In spite of seemingly insurmountable challenges, former Reform editor Chu remains hopeful about the future as he watches a new batch of Christian leaders rise in China. … ‘Every generation has its responsibilities,’ Chu said. ‘The older generation has taken their stand; now the new generation is not only persevering in the Christian faith, but bringing Christianity into society and influencing it.’”

The nail-it-shut quotation has a key individual strongly elucidating the story’s central theme. Here’s one from a police officer:

“At his funeral, they were saying what a tragedy it was—that Gary was a Christian and had even been a missionary. I didn’t know anything about that part of his life. I knew he was a good officer, a good person. But I told God right then that people I ride with aren’t going to hear [for the first time] at my funeral that I was a Christian. I knew I had to do better at letting people know what I am. Because like I said, without God I couldn’t make it.”

Circular endings bring back a central character for a final look. For example, a story that began with a focus on one Chinese Christian ended with two paragraphs in which he said:

“… his Christian faith has sustained him through government pressure as well as his exile from China. He’s seen many activist friends compromise their values as officials offer them cushy jobs and prestige as long as they vow to stop criticizing the government. He’s watched as friends ‘in the struggle’ turn to tactics employed by the Communist Party—refusing to listen to dissenting opinions and squelching opposing ideas. …

“The Bible reminds him that all men—including intellectuals and human rights activists—are sinful and in need of a Savior. His faith also bolsters him as he continues writing, spending time with his family, and worshipping at a Chinese church in the suburbs of Virginia, far from the clamor of Beijing: ‘Most Chinese people feel homesick about China, but I know that on this earth I am a sojourner. So in Beijing I was a sojourner, and in America I am also a sojourner.’”