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Think of the
process of reporting as collecting.
Effective
writing is built with specific, accurate information. Collect facts, collect impressions, collect quotations, collect
details.
Before going out
to do the reporting or interviewing, sit in a quiet corner and figure out what
questions need to be answered. Put yourself in the place of the person you
picture as the reader of your story.
Write down the questions and bring them with you as you do research, as
you attend a speech or a meeting or as you do an interview.
You're not an
expert, so don't be afraid to ask dumb questions.
You're not
perfect, so don't be afraid to double-check spelling or facts, even if it is
embarrassing for you to say, "Could you repeat that please?" or
"Would you mind spelling that again, a little slower?"
Use all your
senses: What does the auditorium or room or house look like? What do you see or hear or even smell?
Reporting
complemented by writing skill is what produced the following excerpt from Saul
Bellow's Seize the Day:
"On Broadway it was still bright afternoon and the gassy air
was almost
motionless under the
leaden spokes of sunlight, and sawdust footprints lay
about the doorways of butcher
shops and fruit stores. And the great, great
crowd, the inexhaustible
current of millions of every race and kind pouring
out, pressing round, of
every age, of every genius, possessors of every human
secret, antique and future, in every face the refinement of
one particular
motive or essence--I
labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I
give way, I envy, I long,
I scorn, I die, I hide, I want. Faster, much faster than
any man could make the
tally. The sidewalks were wider than any causeway;
the street itself was
immense, and it quaked and gleamed and it seemed...to
throb at the last limit of
endurance."
Details tend to
reveal.