Saturday, May 29, 2010

Article Writing is like Country Music

This morning I woke up at the God-awful hour of 3:30am to begin a road trip down to Nashville, TN. As I drove along, and my road trip buddy slept in the passenger seat, I was listening to the endless amounts of country music. The songs, which almost all tell an actual story from beginning to end, are the perfect example of what every good news story should be.


Who, what, where, when, why and how. Take Luke Bryan’s ‘Rain is the a Good Thing’ Who: the main character and his girl. What: thankful for rain that brings lots of good things. Where: The farm, the barn. Why: It makes his girl frisky. How: riding out a thunder storm in the barn… um, yeah…


Entertaining. Or at least interesting to read.Not every story are going to be as catchy as a Brad Paisely song. (Check you for Ticks, Water)


Short. There is the occasional need to tell a story that is equivalent to the length of American Pie, but usually stories can be told better and more clearly with less words and more direct writing.


Descriptive. It’s not enough to just tell the story. In these songs there are only a couple verses and a few rounds of the course. It all needs to fit, which means the words need to be specifically chosen. Old school Kenny Chesney, "big orange ball sinking in the water..."

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