Storytelling with Style

2007-06-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

The best articles, whether written for print, online or broadcast media -- or as advertising or public relations materials, tell stories. These are stories that have a beginning, a middle and an ending. The truth is that good journalism leads to good stories, no matter the journalistic discipline.

In my Narrative Journalism class for Maymester 2007, students set their goals high. Meeting at Newsplex, the class studied how narrative writers focus their stories, explored using different media to tell different parts of a story and absorbed the basics of applying standard fiction-writing technques including scenes, dialogue and plot to nonfiction stories.

The result of their work showcases multimedia narratives of all types: a sardonic tale of one young man's first-time encounter with crawfish, the pitfalls of getting married while trying to graduate from college, a sad and true tale of one fish's last day at Riverbanks Zoo and an intriguing profile of a local gospel and rhythm and blues musician.

Cecile S. Holmes
Associate Professor
USC School of Journalism and Mass Communications

Narrative Journalism 2007

Storytelling with Style