• Essays on Craft
• Author Interviews
• Books and Bookmarks

Author Interview

Roy Wenzl

Mom's Lofty Goals, Jerise's Slam Dunk

Wichita Eagle

Author Comments on "Mom's Lofty Goals":

[Editor's Note: Wenzl wrote these notes for a talk he gave to fellow reporters on "Mom's Lofty Goals, Jerise's Slam Dunk.]

This story illustrates some characteristics of narrative journalism:

• Surprise. Unlike news or news feature stories, you don’t know how this story will turn out until you get to the bottom. It’s designed to pull the reader through the sequence of events.

• Anti-obviousness. Obviousness is one reason why readers stop reading; they already know what’s coming.

• The ideas come from the stuff of life, as opposed to the stuff of abstract documents.

• There is an arc of character development; Jerise evolves (grows, changes) in the story.

• Universal themes: mother vs. daughter, kid vs. schoolwork, people’s prejudices about illegitimate black children vs. how Jerise turned out.

• Conversational tone, including use of first names.

• The story is written with a voice: it’s the reporter’s voice, but there’s a breathless quality that I heard from this hyper-successful 17-year-old school girl.

• Minimal attribution, because with thorough reporting I can write in a narrative style, with an authoritative tone.

• Story is written in scenes, putting the reader right there. As a result, the story is told from the inside out, rather than outside, in. The structure puts the reader at Jerise’s shoulder as she moves through the narrative. She’s not the subject of a news report here. She’s the main character in a story.

• I tried to organize the scenes in a logical sequence, like a multi-act play. There’s an architecture to it, which required outlining.

• Each scene is further organized in a micro-sequence: The story line progresses through a line-by-line time sequence.

• This is a narrative structure, but there are several sub-species of narrative. This one is called the "umbrella" or “hourglass” or “martini glass” narrative structure, where you write an umbrella top covering the wide scope of the whole story, then back up, and start in chronological order under the umbrella.

• The story tells the facts and the story at the same time.

• Find the humor.

• Suspense, tension that builds. (What’s going to happen next?) The writer holds back on information, then doles out surprises, like breadcrumbs along a trail, to reward readers to stay with it. In contrast, inverted pyramid gives it all away in the top.

• It makes a point, hopefully without being preachy: Here’s how one black out-of-wedlock child turned out.

• Attention to small, precise, visual details, creating vividness: "one-quarter-inch thick: top-quality, wire-reinforced plate glass, engineered and hardened to withstand fire."

• Dialogue, rather than quotes, whenever possible, as though the reader is listening not to a monologue but to a conversation between people.

• Storytelling should be as diligently reported as any other writing form. Don’t recreate scenes unless you were there, or unless you’ve got multiple sources about what happened. Don’t recreate scenes at all, unless there’s a good reason.

• Note the repetition of some sentences: “C’s are not acceptable.” “We all know how that turns out, don’t we?” These are theme sentences; they tie the story theme together, like a chorus ties together a song.

• Note that the ending has a payoff and a point.

• Note the 87-word lede. And it’s all one sentence. Note also that it’s written in a rushed, breathless tone. Like the breath of a kid running from goal to goal.

Roy Wenzl has written narratives for The Wichita Eagle since 1998. Two of his serial narratives, "Saving Dad," and "Hope City," were published in Reader's Digest. Another, "The Hero's Son," won a national feature writing award from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001. "Mom's Lofty Goals, Jerise's Slam Dunk," won a third place in the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors' national contest this year.

The Eagle has sent him to Montana to write about an animal sanctuary run by two weary animal lovers; to Wyoming, where he listened to paleontologists deliberate how dinosaurs had sex; to the Flint Hills of Kansas, where he watched calves being born and a cowboy family try to heal the wounds of a religion feud.

He has stood in breadlines talking to the poor, watched an aging boxer spar with teenagers to keep them out of street gangs and stood at the bedside of Sondra Headrick during the Caesarian birth of her sextuplets.

He previously worked as an editor and reporter in Kansas City; Belleville, Ill.; and Fort Lauderdale. Wenzl grew up on a cattle and chicken and crop farm in Washington County, Kan. He still knows how to milk a cow by hand.