Search for great stories finds answer in passion

By Edgar Sandoval
Reporter
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale

Posted: May 13, 2003

I went with one idea on mind: To become like one of them -- the best journalists in the industry.

Surely they would have the answer to the question I have been asking all my professional life: What separates great stories from the ho-hum?

To find the best, I went to where the best gather -- the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism in Cambridge, Mass. Speakers included Pulitzer Prize winners, writers for Ivy League newspapers and other luminaries.

In a way, I felt as if I were back in high school. I was the uncool kid, sitting in the back of the classroom, wearing Kmart outfits (and later denying it) with enough pimples to keep Clearasil in business. The cool kids -- always chatty and smiley -- wore Abercrombie & Fitch and other brand-name clothes. I wanted to be one of them so badly.

These speakers had become part of a selective group of journalists admired by many. Not by their looks or clothes, but by their writing. Their writing made them "cool." They had the answer.

So, I hopped from one workshop to another looking for the answer that would make me a good writer. Maybe someday I would have my own groupies coming to conferences to listen to me speak.

But, someone said, "There is no one key."

"Each person finds his or her own way," another said.

"It takes years," they all suggested.

Fine advice. But I was sure there was a secret they were hanging on to.

How do they know when a subject will make a great story instead of an OK story?

When do you stop and say, "This is IT! This story that will be read by thousands"? When do you say, "Nah, this just another routine Sunday piece to fill the paper"?

Then I entered a workshop led by Lisa Pollak, features reporter at The Sun in Baltimore and Pulitzer Prize winner.

I stood in the back of the room, which was packed. She talked about great stories she has read during the years. There is one reason why these stories were chosen by writers, she told the crowd.

My ears perked up.

Did I hear right? Did she just say "one" reason, as in one "key?"

When you come across a story and you feel your gut tighten, Pollack said, you know that the story has moved you.

"What moves you," I repeated in silence.

It sounds so simple. But how come no other writer had talked about a writer "being moved"?

Pollak talked about an assignment now famous in writing workshop circles, the Oreo stacking contest story. It originated from a press release. Details did not seem interesting at first. A Baltimore area kid won an Oreo stacking contest. Big deal.

She talked to the winner. No big deal. Then she met another contestant, a 7-year-old girl whose story moved her.

The Oreo story became a short narrative about a girl who longed for her own bedroom. The prize that came with the content could have made her dream come true. But she lost.

The girl’s mother understood and converted an office in their house into a bedroom for the girl. The story came full circle. But importantly, the story moved the writer.

So there is a key after all: Talk to more than the usual suspects. Focus on the person who moves you. Once you do, your passion will follow. The story not only will move you, it will move your readers.

Edgar Sandoval was a Summer 1999 Scholar at The Tennessean in Nashville. Reach him at EdJSandoval@aol.com.

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