The nation’s poet written by the nation’s feature writer

It’s funny how stories have come back to haunt me lately.  The poet this feature story is about, Natasha Trethewey, just came to talk at Creighton University.  I assigned the story two weeks ago to one of my news reporters.  And here Trethewey is again.  No offense to my wonderful news reporter who has much less time than Bentley to write stories, but Bentley’s take on it is much more interesting.  It’s really well done, to be honest.

Photo courtesy of The Creative Writing Program at Emory University

In my opinion, there are three aspects about this story that make it successful.  First, the story is organized.  It is chronically arranged, which makes it easier for the reader to follow. It is also split into different sections by a quote by Trethewey or a phrase by Bentley.  I’m not sure if this is just how they chose to display it online, however.  I didn’t see a number 1.  It started with  number 2, which I thought was confusing.  Secondly, Bentley does a good job of telling of Trethewey’s personal story as well as her professional story and then bringing the two parts of her life together in the end with the story of Trethewey’s dad talking about her work.  Lastly, the fact that Bentley showed little sections of Trethewey’s poetry was fantastic.  She described Trethewey without using any of her own words.  She allowed the poetry to show the audience who Trethewey is.

There is only one thing I would do differently if I were Bentley.  I would delete the “2012” marker in the beginning.  2012 is also included near the end of the story.  However, towards the beginning, the marker confused me as a reader.  I didn’t realize the material following the marker would be a continuation of the lead.  To me, the presence of the markers tells me as a reader to expect new or different material.

I think we all can try to incorporate some of the things Bentley did well into our own profile stories.  First, the realization that you can split your stories into sections as long as you’re only telling one story per section is important.  Therefore, as we are researching and interviewing our subjects, we must look for sections within their stories or ways to split up their stories into sections.  Lastly, if they have documents, journals, writings, or other evidence of whatever the profile piece may be about, we need to ask if we can use them.  Having real-life proof that the subject is exactly the way you described him can help your story a lot.

Inspecting the profile of the woman who is “practically perfect in every way”

Although it’s not possible to profile Mary Poppins, you can profile the closest person to her, Julie Andrews, the woman who played her in the classic Disney movie.  In October 2008, The Saturday Evening Post ran a profile about Julie Andrews written by Holly G. Miller.  It focused on Julie Andrews’ writing career.  It was written in a Q&A format, therefore only capturing Julie Andrews’ voice.  If Miller had chosen to not write it in a Q& A format, she would have had to interview others in order to view her subject in more than one light.  Andrews mentions Emma, her daughter, in a lot of her answers.  Miller even mentioned Emma in her questions.  Undoubtedly, Emma would be a great person to interview.  If I were Miller, I would ask Emma questions like this:

1. Your mother is both a performer and an author.  Do you believe she does both successfully?  Is she better at one than she is the other?
2. Did you learn anything new from your mother’s memoir, Home?

Photo courtesy of Andrew Eccles/JBGPhoto.com

3. In what ways did you help your mother with her memoir?
4.  Your mother states that her partnership with you started with the books Dumpy the Dump Truck after you mentioned that you would pick a book about trucks for Sam.  Is this true?
5.  What is it like working with your mother?
6.  Which one of you is leader in the partnership?
7. How did you mother instill a love for books and reading in you as a young child?  Was she successful in balancing her home life and performing career?  Why or why not?
8.  Do you see your mother and yourself working together in the future?  In what ways?

In addition to Emma, I would also interview her book publisher.  I would ask her publisher questions like this:

1.  How good is Julie Andrews’ writing?
2.  Have you been surprised by some of the content she has produced?  Why or why not?
3. Do you believe her performing career has helped her in writing?  In what ways?
4.  Does Andrews work well with her daughter?
5.  Do you hope Andrews produces more books in the future? Why or why not?

Reading the current Q&A article written by Miller in 2008, I believe the profile has elements as both a “portrait” and a “photograph” story.  However, I do believe it leans more towards the “portrait” side.  It is mostly about her successful performing career,  writing career and her almost perfect partnership with her daughter.  It does mention her alcoholic mother and her non-existent biological father in one part, which does show that she has not had a perfect, fairytale life.  That would be the small “photograph” part of the story.

If the article was too long for the space allotted for it, I would take out the question about keeping a journal as a young girl.  The answer to that question is no; in fact, her diaries went missing.  Therefore, she had to take information from her memories, which most audiences assume of those who are writing a memoir.  I would also take out the question if a second book to Home is in the works.  The article doesn’t really focus on the future; it focuses on the release of Home and her career leading up to her memoir. Later in the interview, a question is asked about what she might be writing in the future, so this question overlaps with that one.

Thoughts on finishing my first feature story

After struggling to find a topic for my first feature story, I decided to write about something close to home.  I noticed during my freshman year that there are several Jesuits that are a part of the Creighton community who graduated from Marquette University High School (MUHS) in Milwaukee, which is the city where I grew up.  There are about a dozen that are MUHS alumni, and this week I got to sit down with four of them.  I wrote about their vocation stories, their high school experiences and what their thoughts are on the future of MUHS.

I absolutely loved talking with and getting to know the four Jesuits.  As someone who did not go to a Jesuit high school, I now know what those who went to a Jesuit high school are saying when they exclaim, “I love the Jesuits!”  Since I was talking to the Jesuits about Milwaukee where they also grew up, I figured that I have some crazy connections with them.  For example, the paper route that Fr. Don Doll had as a little boy was on the street a block from the house in which I grew up.  Fr. Don Doll said his first mass at Christ King Church, and I went to Christ King School from kindergarten until eighth grade.  In addition,  Fr. Larry Gillick knows both of my grandparents.  As I was packing my bags after I interviewed him, he said, “Well, we’re practically related, Madeline.  Can we be friends?”

Although I loved the experience, there were some challenging parts.  I expected to find out that one of the Jesuits knew and were friends with one of the other Jesuits on campus during high school, and that wasn’t the case with any of them.  They had all heard each other’s names, but weren’t friends with each other. I had to change my angle on the story halfway through. I also found that in-person interviewing takes a lot of time.  I sat down with each one of them for an hour a piece.  I spent 4 hours in one week just doing interviews.  I recorded each interview and then I had to sit down and listen to all of them again and pick which quotes and thoughts I wanted to use.  That also took a long time.

I love feature writing! As mentioned before, all I have written so far in my college career is news pieces.  I am definitely more comfortable writing news.  However, this was a topic I chose.  It’s an interesting topic.  It was enjoyable to write because you get to tell someone else’s story, and that’s a neat opportunity.

Fr. Larry Gillick in 1958, after graduating from MUHS.

I would definitely do a few things differently.  If I were writing this story for my job, I would probably write a similar story to mine and then I would ask my editor if I could do a profile piece on Fr. Gillick.  I tried to use all of my sources as much as possible in this piece, but I did probably use more of Fr. Gillick’s story.  His story is truly incredible and it deserves a story of its own.  Finally, as mentioned above, my angle had to change, so I would make sure a specific angle is actually doable before I go into a story with a defined angle.

I was really happy with my final result and I’m glad I got to the know and connect with some of the Jesuits on campus!

Erin Grace, OWH columnist, shares expertise and experiences

This past Wednesday, September 11, Erin Grace shared her story with my Feature Writing class.  My dream ever since I started the Journalism major was to eventually write for a newspaper, but I don’t think I’ve ever talked to or seen in person a reporter for one of the newspapers.  Now that I think about it, several of my professors were once reporters, but I suppose I’ve never seen a reporter, in the middle of a busy day, with story ideas swirling around in his or her head, talk to a group of students.

I was so excited to hear her speak and talk about her experiences, but I remember coming out of the classroom a little more scared than I thought I would be, almost second guessing this “I want to be a reporter” deal.

Photo courtesy of the Omaha World-Herald: From the Notebook website

I think the detail that scared me the most was that it is possible but also extremely hard to raise children when you’re working crazy hours.  I know that one day, I would like to raise children.  I was raised by a stay-at-home mom, so the thought of not always being there for my children is almost unreal.  I suppose that balance of work and family is something everyone in every occupation deals with.

However, her stories about writing about the Amish community and visiting New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina were very interesting.  Those are experiences she will probably never forget, and it’s experiences like those that make the job so worthwhile.  It also proves her point that no two days are the same.  She gets to experience all sorts of events and cultures, and that’s just really cool.

As a feature writer, based on her advise, I would like to think more about the four characteristics of feature stories she stressed.  Each feature story must have a compelling character, a setting, a conflict and details regarding the five senses.  I truly like the idea that stresses thinking about your senses and explaining what you heard and what you saw to the reader.

There is just one comment of hers with on which I’d like to comment.  She mentions that she likes to come up with her own story ideas because the editor’s ideas are often “chewed up.”  I’ve never worked in a real newsroom before, but being the news editor of The Creightonian, I wonder if she’d consider the stories ideas I come up with as “chewed up.”  I’d like to think they aren’t, but what do I really know?

Profiling the President, the Kid President

“If you could profile any individual, dead or alive, who would you profile?”

I thought about this for hours.  I thought of athletes, musicians, even British royalty.  While thinking about profiling someone like Barack Obama, I thought of the kid president.

The kid president has become a YouTube sensation. More importantly, he’s a YouTube sensation with a positive message, which can be hard to come across these days.  He’s a motivational speaker, he’s met President Obama and other celebrities, all at the age of only 10, which I think is pretty cool.  Since most people only know Robby Novak as the kid president, it would be cool to find out who Robby Novak is as a regular kid.

Questions I would ask Robby:

Photo courtesy of Kid President’s Tumblr.

1. What does a regular day in your life look like?
2. What do you like to do in your free time?
3.  How did you become the “kid president?”
4. Were you surprised how popular the first video became?
5.  What is it like to meet people like Beyonce and President Obama?
6.  A big reason why these videos are made is because you and Brad believe that kids have voices that need to be heard as well. Why should people listen to kids?
7. Your first video you made for your friend Gabbi.  Do you dedicate each of your videos to someone in your life?
8. What are the other purposes of making the videos?
9. What is it like working with Brad while making these videos?
10.  I have read that you have OI.  How does that affect your everyday life?
11.  I also have read that even with OI, you keep going, you dance.  Why dancing? What about dancing appeals to you?

I would really like to focus on the 10 year old Robby, not the “kid president” Robby.  Obviously, being the kid president has been a big part of his life, but I’d like to dig deeper, which would be accomplished by questions like “what do you do in your free time?” and questions about his condition.

I would talk to Brad, who works with him while he takes on the role as “kid president.” On his kid president website it reads “payed for by my mom.”  So I naturally would talk to his parents.  If I could get a hold of kids he goes to school with, they would be great sources as well.

In terms of art or visual elements, I would definitely include the videos he’s made as kid president.  I think it would be really cool to get a “behind the scenes” video while he’s making the kid president videos with Brad, because you’d be able to see the kid president side of him as well as the 10 year old side of him.

The start of every story: The idea

In all honesty, I have not written more than a few feature stories throughout my high school and college career.  I am a total news writer, and because I’m comfortable in that area, I stick to it.  Finding news stories is basic.  What’s happening around campus or what’s happening around the world that can relate to your audience?  Simple. Easy. Done.

That is one of the main reasons why I find picking a topic for feature stories challenging.   I started thinking about possible topics last week, and still haven’t come up with a decent one.  Writing good feature stories start with picking a good, narrow topic.  Finding those topics force you to dig really deep and notice things that not everyone notices. It forces you to find a new angle on a story that may have been written many times.  

When my professor said we should start thinking about stories, the first thing I did was Google “feature story ideas for college students.”  I feel ashamed for claiming that tactic, but I’m just being honest.  I found a list of 40 ideas on this handout.  I was not as impressed with this list, but I do like the idea to interview the oldest person on campus.  I think it would be cool to interview a non-traditional student and ask what it is like to be in class with younger students.  I also do a lot of twiddling my thumbs, which is what our assigned reading said a lot of beginning writers do.  For example, I thought about the doctor’s office I worked at this past summer and how there is a father-son pair and a father-daughter pair.  But I know those people, so technically that’s writing inside my backyard.  I also thought about how many of the Jesuits on Creighton’s campus went to high school in my hometown.  That’s cool, but what would my angle be?

I find it easier if I can look at a couple of sample feature stories, then think about and play off those ideas.  I want to write about something I’m interested in and passionate about, but not something too familiar.

Doing the assigned readings definitely helped in introducing me to the correct way to go about finding story ideas.  I found out I have to do a ton of research.  Actually go into the library and walk through the shelves, look at old magazines and spend lots of time reading.  I also need to learn to reach outside of my comfort zone.  I need to talk to people who have an inside scoop and once I have an idea, interview sources that I do not know.  As I have become a regular reporter and entered leadership positions in my college newspaper, The Creightonian, I’ve become more comfortable doing those types of things, which according to the readers, beginning writers often don’t do.

Even after all that reflection, I still don’t have a story idea.  Wish me luck!