to his death. The manager responds with a story about suicide you had never expected:
“His whole world was upside down,” Baker says softly. “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to lose hope.”
The words come haltingly. “There was a time, at a down moment, I was tired of it all,” he says, pausing. “Man, some of this stuff I’ve been holding on to for 20 years.”3
Your keen observations can lead to new and fresh angles, such as the one above. Fill your notebook with these specific details about places, people, and things you might need during the writing process.
In addition, listen for conversations that help define moments, illustrate points, or drive plot lines. You might also reconstruct dialogue through research and interviews, asking multiple sources to describe a moment where they talked with one another. You can insert the conversation within quote marks, as Jeremy Markovich does in his story on Dick Trickle’s suicide, entitled “Elegy of a Race Car Driver,” especially if you can confirm the information through documents, video or 911 audio:
Sometime after 10:30 on a Thursday morning in May, after he’d had his cup of coffee, Dick Trickle snuck out of the house. His wife didn’t see him go. He eased his 20-year-old Ford pickup out on the road and headed toward Boger City, N.C., 10 minutes away. He drove down Highway 150, a two-lane road that cuts through farm fields and stands of trees and humble country homes that dot the Piedmont west of Charlotte, just outside the reach of its suburban sprawl. Trickle pulled into a graveyard across the street from a Citgo station. He drove around to the back. It was sunny. The wind blew gently from the west. Just after noon, he dialed 911. The dispatcher asked for his address.
“Uh, the Forest Lawn, uh, Cemetery on 150,” he said, his voice calm. The dispatcher asked for his name. He didn’t give it.
“On the backside of it, on the back by a ’93 pickup, there’s gonna be a dead body,” he said.
“OK,” the woman said, deadpan.
“Suicide,” he said. “Suicide.”
“Are you there?”
“I’m the one.”
“OK, listen to me, sir, listen to me.”
“Yes, it’ll be 150, Forest Lawn Cemetery, in the back by a Ford pickup.”
“OK, sir, sir, let me get some help to you.”
Click.4
Or you can present dialogue in other formats, informing your audience when you cannot verify the exact dialogue, as Kurt Streeter did in his piece on a young female boxer entitled “The Girl.” He puts dialogue he did not hear himself in italics, including the conversation cited in the opening paragraphs below:
Do girls box? she asked, turning to her father one evening. Is it OK for girls to box?
Well, yeah, mija, they do, he answered. Sure, it’s OK for girls to box.
They were sitting on the bed in his cramped apartment, faces lit by a flickering TV, eating pizza, watching a pro boxing match. Seniesa loved to watch fights with him, loved the way boxers settled their differences, using fists to express what was inside. She was just a kid, a girl enthralled with a man’s sport, but she wanted to express herself like that.
Dad? Can I box? Can I learn how to box? 5
Access is a challenge at many levels, especially for those covering professional or major-college sports programs. But you can still gain a great deal of access to athletes competing in minor sports at major colleges, to athletes at major sports at smaller colleges, and to high school and amateur athletes. Often, the best feature stories are found off the beaten path, away from these major programs. Just check any annual edition of the Best American Sports Writing series that features stories on hunting for elephants in Botswana, on a Hall of Fame football player battling Alzheimer’s, on the world’s best squatter, and on a cave explorer. Step away from the spotlight to find unreported stories worth investigating.
If you do profile someone, hang out as much as possible—watch practices, attend meetings, follow the person across campus, go to lunch together. Observe and take some notes, even if you can only do so mentally.
Ask
You’ll also need to talk to a wide range of people, everyone from friends to foes to teammates to opposing players and family members. One- or two-source feature stories are usually not worth printing. A hulking defensive lineman says he’s a lady’s man? Ask his mom. A volleyball libero says she can always spot where players are about to spike the ball? Ask opposing players and coaches to verify this. A coach says she’s haunted by a childhood event? Call her friends and family to get more details. Ultimately, you may not even quote some of these people, but their insights will enable you to find the proper perspective or some compelling angles. If you have time to speak with someone else, do so. Struggling with information? Call a source again. Your job is to collect information and to gain perspective, which means speaking to as many people as possible. So get back on the phone, go to the gym, or head to a local hangout and keep talking. Good writers often say they don’t stop reporting until they’ve heard the same thing three times.
▸ The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin says he creates one-page outlines that he glances over during slower moments in interviews to remind himself of key points he wants to address. “I don’t like to stare at my notes and recite questions as if I’m reading off a teleprompter,” he says. “I like to keep eye contact during interviews.”
▸ Ask numerous follow-up questions in order to get enough information to write authoritatively about people, places, things, or issues. Don’t go on to the next topic until you have enough questions to fully understand an issue or to develop a detailed scene.
▸ The person profiled may be the last person you speak with. Gather stories first from others who are less guarded in offering information and insights. Friends and family are usually more than willing to gab about one another.
▸ Be candid with potential sources, letting them know what you want to learn, whom you’ve already spoken with, and what you already know. This approach can help build your credibility and also reveal that others are talking. “There’s a phrase I heard once: ‘The more you know, the more you’ll get,’” says Dave Hyde. “The more you know about a story and can tell the person you’re interviewing, the more that person is going to tell you. He or she will see you have some information and so won’t be so hesitant to talk.”
▸ Don’t hesitate to call sources several times for a single story. You might even want to end an interview by saying something like this: “Would you mind if I call back if I have more questions or need to clarify something?” Few people will decline this invitation to verify and clarify details.
▸ Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even about something as sensitive as losing a friend or being embarrassed about dyslexia. Readers seek stories that reveal these intimate and emotional aspects of athletes and coaches. In the piece on a Packers rookie running back, Dume kept asking questions, respectfully but persistently: “All I did was
