Explain to the citizens of Verona what happened between the Capulets and Montagues. Your story should be 4-5 paragraphs long, NO MORE. Due Monday.
Tells Who, What, When, Where, and Why (5 points). You earn one point for each of the following:
- Clear and concise writing.
- Are written in 3rd person.
- Use active verbs, rather than passive ("dog bites man", not "man bitten by dog")
- Should be factual and accurate.
- Should include quotes, comments, opinions, statements and observations from people involved or experts on the topic (at least 2 of these for 2 points)
- Give people labels so that the reader knows who they are right away, for example: "the Minister, Mr. Dash".
- Should avoid biased or prejudicial language.
- Should be accurate and balanced (provide facts supporting both sides of the issue).
- Concise but eye-catching title
- =15 points
Here are some tips from http://journalism.about.com/od/writing/a/storystructure.htm
How to Structure News Stories
There are a few basic rules for writing and structuring any news story. If you’re accustomed to other types of writing – such as fiction – these rules may seem odd at first. But the format is easy to pick up, and there are very practical reasons why reporters have followed this format for decades.
The Inverted Pyramid
The inverted pyramid is the model for newswriting. It simply means that the heaviest or most important information should be at the top – the beginning – of your story, and the least important information should go at the bottom. And as you move from top to bottom, the information presented should gradually become less important.
An Example
Let’s say you’re writing a story about a fire in which two people are killed and their house is burned down. In your reporting you’ve gathered a lot of details including the victims’ names, the address of their home, what time the blaze broke out, etc.
Obviously the most important information is the fact that two people died in the fire. That’s what you want at the top of your story.
Other details – the names of the deceased, the address of their home, when the fire occurred – should certainly be included. But they should be placed lower down in the story, not at the very top.
And the least important information - things like what the weather was like at the time, or the color of the home - should be at the very bottom of the story.
The Story Follows The Lede
The other important aspect of structuring a news article is making sure the story follows logically from the lede.
So if the lede of your story focuses on the fact that two people were killed in the house fire, the paragraphs that immediately follow the lede should elaborate on that fact. You wouldn't want the second or third paragraph of the story to discuss the weather at the time of the fire.
A Little History
The inverted pyramid format turns traditional storytelling on its head. In a short story or novel, the most important moment – the climax - typically comes near the very end. But in newswriting the most important moment is right at the start in the lede.
The format was developed during the Civil War. Newspaper correspondents covering that war’s great battles relied on telegraph machines to transmit their stories back to their newspapers’ offices.
But often saboteurs would cut the telegraph lines, so reporters learned to transmit the most important information – Gen. Lee defeated at Gettysburg, for instance – at the very start of the transmission to make sure it got through successfully. The newswriting format developed then has served reporters well ever since.
