I was standing by the soda fountain in the downtown Which ‘Wich, waiting for my sandwich, when fellow reporter Stephanie Ebbs dropped this piece of advice on me: when she’s writing a story, she’ll write parts of it as she gathers information.
When you’re done with an interview, start turning your notes into your story, she said. This way, you have an idea of where your story is headed. Also, the amount of information in front of you is more easily digestible and not so daunting when you sit down to write. This obviously helps with longer, more complex stories.
I wrote about this a little bit in this post, but to recap: writing and rewriting the nutgraf throughout the reporting process helps hone your thinking. Having a mess of notes (if you’re like me) already in paragraph form probably helps with that, too.
Behind Blue Skies 