Essays on Craft

  • Rebecca Allen

    News Feature v. Narrative: What's the Difference?

    Special to the Digest

    A narrative is a story that has a beginning, middle and end. It engages the reader's mind and heart. It shows actors moving across its stage, revealing their characters through their actions and their speech. At its heart, a narrative contains a mystery or a question—something that compels the reader to keep reading and find out what happens. Newspaper narratives are also entirely true and factual in every detail.

    Tags:
    Narrative Arc,
    Writing
  • Bruce DeSilva

    Endings

    Special to the Digest

    The ending is something special. The ending is the last word. It's the writer's final chance to nail his or her point home to the memory of the reader. It's the moment when you give the reader something to take away from the story and think about or when you fail to achieve that.

    Tags:
    Finding the Story,
    Narrative Arc