Features-style: Spinning a good yarn

Vivid storytelling – a.k.a. as narrative writing and creative nonfiction – was once the norm. Mark Twain was a newspaperman, as well as a novelist. The “yellow papers” – led by Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal – teemed with color (much of it tawdry tabloidism, but color nonetheless). The practice continued until WWII, when Ernie Pyle's compassionate columns resembled “letters home”.

Boston University Professor Mark Kramer observed in Literary Journalism: “James Agee, Ernest Hemingway, A. J. Liebling, Joseph Mitchell, Lillian Ross, and John Steinbeck tried out narrative essay forms.” He continued, “Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, and Joan Didion followed, and somewhere in there, the genre came into its own – that is, its writers began to identify themselves as part of a movement, and the movement began to take on conventions and to attract writers.”

Authors like Hunter Thompson and John McPhee applied these techniques – and won great renown. But newspapers – on the whole – fostered a drier, more factual style. “Storytelling went out the window,” complained Jack Hart, managing editor of The Oregonian. “We had only the inverted pyramid and the standard news feature: quote, transition, quote, transition, quote, transition, kicker ... you're outta there!”

Then New Journalism blazed and helped banish “the pale beige tone of the inverted pyramid,” Hart insisted. Best of all, readers connect more with this personable style. They comprehend complex topics easier, retain information and even buy more papers, according to Northwestern University's Readership Institute.

So what is this miracle fix, exactly? Experts bicker on the finer points, but travel writing guru Don George nutshelled it well: “Essentially, a good story is like a good work of fiction, with a beginning, a middle and an end, characters and conflict, dialogue, telling details, a narrative arc. The full range of literary techniques should be employed.”

Kramer confirms this: "scene setting, dialogue, and sensory description can improve every article." Read more insights from top writers in Chip Scanlan's coverage of the the sixth annual Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism.