EDITOR’S NOTE: The final post in our series on narrative interviewing explores how a reporter focuses in on the cinematic details that create compelling scenes. Previous posts outlined the difference between reporting for news and for narrative, the pre-interviewing needed to find a character and make a successful story pitch, the interview that outlines a story arc and sequencing scenes to build a structure.

The last major phase of interviewing for narrative usually occurs just before (or precisely when) I’m ready to sit down and write. My story is solid. I know my central character and the arc of the story’s journey. I’ve identified pivotal moments and structure in mind. Now I need to fill in those scenes with detail and movement. I’ve chosen the pivotal moments worthy of cinematic scenes.

Before we talk about interviewing for scenes, though, we have to talk about structure, because structure informs which pivotal moments should be developed into scenes.

“Story structure” is one of those abstract terms that I struggled for years to articulate to my students, some of whom had trouble grasping it as something other than a formula. I finally settled on my own definition: A deliberate sequence of revelation. Another way to think of it: What you let the reader know — and when.

Not all writers believe in creating an outline before sitting down to write. I don’t like the term outline, because it triggers traumatic memories of Roman numeral outlines wrung out of us in middle school. I prefer the idea of a story map. It might look like a flow chart, a paper-napkin sketch or a screenwriter’s storyboard, which contains a sequence of drawings, usually with dialogue and a bit of stage direction, representing different shots and camera angles.

Here’s Gay Talese’s story map for “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” one of the most famous profiles in the history of feature writing:

I can’t speak to Talese’s use of color coding or geometry, but clearly this is a deliberate blueprint that speaks to how the author’s mind works. (He famously cut shirtboards into quarters and rounded the corners so they’d fit in his pocket for note-taking. He also used them for story outlines.)

It helps some of my students to think of a narrative as a necklace strung with scenes, summary and exposition. Scenes capture a specific moment in time when something pivotal happens in a story; time is often running at a normal pace, and the use of imagery, action and dialogue let the story play out in the reader’s mind like a movie. Summary compresses time and transitions the reader from scene to scene, often connoting cause and effect. Exposition is like a narrative pause button, a brief diversion from the story to explain something the reader must know to fully understand the meaning of the scene they just saw or the scene that’s about to happen.

The more you can stay in scene, the more the story immerses the reader, like a movie or a great novel. Summary allows you to speed things up to get to the next great scene; it often includes some backstory — prior events or key context. And exposition reveals why it matters and what it means; these are often the lovely literary pearls that get underlined and quoted or made into memes.

In my classes and workshops, I have students write a bullet-point version of each scene on an individual 3×5 notecard. They might also make a notecard for something technical that needs to be explained (exposition) or a bit of summary or backstory. I first ask them to place the notecards on the floor in chronological order. After snapping a photo to record this sequence, I ask them to pick a scene that’s not the first one, but has particular drama, tension or meaning. Then I ask them to reorder the notecards, prioritizing the most pivotal moments and considering others as possible flashbacks. This often reveals a new structure that they had previously never considered.

Here’s how one of my book proposals began:

Filling in scenic details

The way my brain works, I need to reach this point before going back to the character (for the Nth time) to do what I call “interviewing for scene.”

At this phase of the process, the questions get very granular. I start interrupting and saying, Wait. Let’s back up. Do you mean…? As the character is speaking, I’m constantly pressing for more specificity. More detail. The more concrete the detail, the more crisp the image in the reader’s mind.

Here’s a bit of an interview transcript for “In Light of All Darkness,” where I’m trying to get a play-by-play from an FBI agent, the Evidence Response Team member who lifted a partial palm print from Polly Klaas’s bunkbed frame using the then-brand-new technology of fluorescent powder and Alternate Light Source (forensic light).

Q:    So you’re dusting Polly’s bed frame with fluorescent powder. In one interview, you said “orange.” In another you said “red.”

A:    They call it REDWOP, but it’s a fluorescent orange.

Q:    Because REDWOP is “powder” spelled backwards, right?

A:    Yes.

Q:    So you scanned the whole room with the (forensic) light before you put on any powder?

A:    I would have done an overall scan of the room. Then I would have gone to the target I was looking at, which was the bed.

Q:    Why was that the target?

A:    That was an object that was doable. And it was within arm’s reach of the suspect. Proximity. So I went close to the floor and I did test patterns with different powders.

Q:    Are you talking about the bottom of the bed frame?

A:    Down by the floor, at the bottom, where I knew the suspect could not have touched.

Q:    By “bottom” do you mean the horizontal piece of wood along the mattress? Or the vertical leg of the bed frame?

A:    It was on the vertical leg.

Q:    And were you wearing goggles?

A:    I was.

Q:    So you first would have turned off the lights, right?

A:    Yes.

Q:    Would you have closed the door?

A:    Correct. I needed as much total darkness as I could get. The darker the room, the better the light fluoresces.

I later realized that it looks a lot like the trial transcripts I was reading, in which a trial lawyer is examining a witness on the stand. In a way, the lawyer and the reporter have a similar objective: elicit a narrative with such crisp detail that a jury member, or reader, can imagine it vividly.

As the character is speaking, I’m trying to see what they are seeing on the silver screen of memory. My friend and fellow narrative journalist Bronwen Dickey likes to say, “Pretend I’m a GoPro.” I like to see not only what the character is seeing in that moment, but also understand what they’re thinking about it. I hunt for internal dialogue.

Q:    What was it about REDWOP that worked better? Could you describe what the green looked like, and what you were not seeing that you wanted to see?

A:    With the green, there was not enough reflective material on the bed. It did not define for my eyes any fingerprints at all.

Q:    So then what did the REDWOP look like?

A:    I could see a palm print. I could see fingerprints. I could see residue from the black powder used by the police department. I could see smudges. My difficulty was that the palm print I saw was over a round disc, which was plastic. Normally, powder will adhere to plastic but not to wood.

Q:    Is there a word that pops into your head when you’re like, “That’s it!”

A:    I would normally just say, “Oh my!”

I’m constantly pressing for more specificity — for telling details and concrete imagery low on the Ladder of Abstraction. Evidence, you say? What kind of evidence? Fingerprints? Which hand? Which finger? Was it a loop, an arch, or a whorl?

Some people are more visually inclined than others. Some have better vocabularies or ways of describing a scene. I ask my story characters if they have photos, videos, text messages or other visual aids. If we flip through a photo album, I’ll point to certain objects, hoping to unearth a telling detail. (A “telling detail” is something that reveals character, yields insight or advances the narrative; it’s more than a bit of scenery.) If I need to take the reader inside a house that no longer exists, I’ll ask them to draw me a floor plan.

As the scene starts to come together in my mind, I’ll plumb it for meaning and try to see it through a particular Point of View. (The best definition of POV came from my son when he was in fifth grade: “It means, ‘Whose head are you in?’”). I try to write a scene through the Point of View of only one character in that scene to avoid what I think of as “head hopping.”) To do that, I need to get inside that character’s head. Some of my favorite questions for doing so are:

What did that look like?

How so?

What do you mean?

How did that feel?

Why do you think that is?

Fact-checking as a final interview

The last phase of my narrative interviewing process is calling up the character and reading them scenes I’ve written in their particular point of view. This is my way of fact-checking all the assumptions and interpretations involved in using my vocabulary to describe someone else’s experience. Did the language I chose accurately represent what they saw and felt and thought?

I know I’ve done my job if they find it not only accurate, but true.

What's the outcome of that work? You can read the passage from the book here.

* * *

Kim Cross is a journalist, historian and author of three nonfiction books, including “In Light of All Darkness.” She teaches feature writing for Harvard Extension School’s master’s degree program in journalism and is a founding instructor of the Hemingway Center’s Sawtooth Writing Retreat.

The post The art of the narrative interview: Filling in scenic details appeared first on Nieman Storyboard.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the third installment of our series on interviewing, narrative journalist Kim Cross describes how to find and follow the arc of a story and the central tension or conflict that drives it forward. Previous posts outlined the difference between reporting for news and for narrative, and the pre-interviewing needed to make a successful story pitch.

Interviews are not one-and-done, especially when filling your notebook and recorder for complex pieces that require multiple sources and multiple layers of information. A lot of that work is done before you get to the heart of the story you hope to tell. Preliminary interviews are needed to ensure you have a solid story idea then to find the character or characters who embody that idea — in other words, to find the person you and the readers can follow through an experience.

Once you’ve found your central character, it’s time to work with them to find the narrative arc of their story.

The True North of the first interview with your central character is a search for tension or conflict — the struggle they face and must resolve. But that’s not the best place to begin an interview. Diving straight into the hard questions can set a person back on their heels and make it harder to build rapport.

I like to begin by warming up. That part of an interview should feel more like a conversation than a formal interview. “So, what do you do for fun?” is one of my favorite questions. It almost always elicits a pleasant emotion, an anecdote and plenty of follow-up questions: What’s that like? How’d you get into that? What do you love about it?

It’s even easier if you’ve done a little homework beforehand, perhaps a smart Google search or a survey of their social media posts. You’ll already know that someone’s a Dodgers fan, an avid knitter, a grandparent or the owner of a labradoodle puppy. Ask about those things and nervous subjects will smile, relax, even gush.

It may sound like small talk. But if you listen closely (and watch), you’re gaining insight into character. It’s also a path to finding common ground — a shared interest, hobby or situation that establishes a human connection. Don’t be afraid to open up and share a little about yourself, too. Knowing who they’re talking to — a real person, not a automaton or a clichéd cap-letters REPORTER! — tends to put people at ease.

The first interview can take place at a neutral spot — a coffee shop, park, wherever the person feels comfortable. But there are great advantages to meeting in the person’s natural habitat — their workplace, or better yet, their home.

Pulitzer Prize-winning feature writer Lane DeGregory says she always asks, “Can I come over?” If a prospective story subject says no, she doesn’t push or fold. She simply asks, “Okay, where do you want to meet?” But often the people she reaches out to say yes and invite her into their lives. She usually starts by asking them to show her around. Give her a little tour. It makes people feel a little less “perceived” and more in control. It can also lead to a story different from the one you were expecting.

“I had this one lady take me on a tour of her house,” DeGregory told me. “The story completely changed by the time we got up the stairs.”

The way people inhabit their space and feather their nest reveals a lot about them and invites easy questions that can help them (and you!) relax as you get to know and trust each other. Questions like:

• Are those your kids in that photo? How old are they? What do they do for fun?
• How did you win that trophy? How’d you get into that sport/hobby/endeavor?
• Is that a souvenir from a trip you took? Where? When? What was it like?

The struggle that makes the story

I usually spend the first five or 10 minutes of the first interview warming up. Once I see a person relax, I move slowly toward the goal: conflict.

In classic narrative, it’s the struggle that follows an “inciting incident.” It’s the journey a character takes when they confront a complication or challenge and have to work through it to some sort of resolution.

What I hunting for is what screenwriter Aaron Sorkin calls “intention and obstacle.” The character has a very specific dream, desire or goal. As they pursue it, their path is fraught with hurdles, locked doors or booby traps. These obstacles may be external (rejection, enemies, wrong turns) or internal (doubt, mistakes, self-sabotage) and they stymy the character’s progress toward the end-goal.

Sportswriter Gary Smith calls it the “central conflict.”

“Every person has a central conflict to their lives and a daily manifestation of that conflict. Find the central conflict, find its daily manifestation,” he says, “and it draws you closer to that person’s soul.”

I personally like the term “ordeal” because it implies drama, but the nature of that drama can be serious or comical. It might involve healing from trauma — or a middle-aged mother’s non-pivotal quest to master a wheelie.

They key is that the character must struggle in some way. The struggle creates tension, which is the engine of a narrative. It’s also a source of character development: The struggle makes a character relatable, inviting the reader to sympathize or empathize. That connection often prompts the reader to engage in the story and invest in the character’s journey: What have they gone through? How did it start? What obstacles did they overcome, and — this is critical—how did they overcome these obstacles? What did they learn? What was the resolution? How did it end?

Letting the story unfold

In this early phase of interviewing for narrative, it’s helpful to focus on broad and open-ended questions. So how did you get interested or involved in XYZ? What was that like? When and how did all this begin?

Then: Listen. Let them talk. Resist the urge to interrupt or ask clarifying questions. (The time for that will come later.) Many people have surprisingly good storytelling instincts, and if you let them talk without too much interruption, you’ll see the story start to emerge.

If I had only three questions to ask to find a person’s narrative arc, it would be these:

• What’s the hardest thing you’ve been through?
• How did you get through it?
• How did it change you?

* * *

Kim Cross is a journalist, historian, and author of “What Stands in a Storm,” “The Stahl House” and “In Light of All Darkness.” She teaches graduate level Feature Writing for Harvard Extension School’s master’s degree program in journalism and is a founding instructor of the Hemingway Center’s Sawtooth Writing Retreat.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second post in our five-part series on the art of the interview from narrative journalist and teacher Kim Cross. In the opening piece, Cross notes the need for an interviewing approach that is different than that she learned about straightforward news reporting. He, she focuses on the pre-interviewing that’s needed for a successful story pitch.

There is no narrative writing without narrative reporting. And the first challenge of narrative writing is finding a viable story — a story that contain the elements of a narrative and allows you access to those elements. The key element is almost always character.

Here’s my simplified definition of a narrative: A character struggles through an ordeal that produces insight or change.

Ordeal implies a source of tension — the engine of narrative writing. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin calls it “intent and obstacle.” The character wants something, but has to overcome challenges standing in the way. I like “ordeal” because an ordeal can be frightening or funny, life-altering or comically inconvenient. The ordeal is something the character experienced firsthand. The character must struggle against and through that ordeal in some way.

Many pitches are rejected due to a lack of specificity. The writer wants to write about some particular topic or an issue. That’s a start. If the topic interests you enough, you are motivated to learn more. But learning about the topic is not enough to frame it as a story.

“Put a human face on it,” many editors say. Find a character struggling through the issue in some very specific way. That struggle is a source of tension, and tension is the narrative engine.

Scouting for the right character

So how do you find the character that makes the story? One who lets you follow them through a journey that engages the reader intellectually and emotionally?

Figure out where that character might gather or connect with other like-minded (or like-problemed) individuals, or with people who are affected by or care deeply about the issue you want to explore. It could be a place (the food stamps line, a drag club, a senior center, an ER waiting room) or an organized gathering (a protest march, a class, a book club meeting, a church service). As an outsider, it can sometimes be easier to approach a group of people who might be wary about the press when they’re alone alone but feel comfort and in their togetherness.

If you can’t find an organic gathering, chances are there’s an advocacy group or agency that wants to raise awareness for this issue. If your story can educate readers, those advocates or officials have a vested interest in helping you. Figure out if the group has a media contact, PR professional, marketing chief or spokesperson. Then ask for an  informational interview. Use that interview to learn more about the issue so you have your foundation of facts in place. At the same time, explain that you need to find a person who embodies the matter at hand. Often, the official will have someone top-of-mind; sometimes they have to do a little searching on their end. Either way, they are helping their cause while they help you find your story.

Useful questions for the informational interview:

• What are the biggest challenges of the issue that most people don’t understand?
• Can you put me in touch with someone who is struggling with these challenges?
• How willing might this person be to working with me? What might be their concerns?
• What else should I read/consider/know before talking with this person?

As you’re pre-reporting to flesh out your pitch, remember to ask yourself the questions your editor will be asking as they read your pitch:

• So what? (Why does this story matter? Does it address some larger theme?)
• Who cares? (To whom does this matter? Who is the audience for this story?)
• Why now? (Is there a news hook, trend, or other timely element of this story?)
• Why this writer? (What makes you uniquely qualified to write this story?)

Once you identify a central character and can answer these questions, you’ve got most of the ingredients for a viable story idea. You might have enough to weave them into a pitch. The next phase of the interviewing process may occur just before or just after your pitch.

* * *

Kim Cross is a journalist, historian, and New York Times Best-Selling author of “What Stands in a Storm,” “The Stahl House” and “In Light of All Darkness.” She teaches graduate level Feature Writing for Harvard Extension School’s master’s degree program in journalism and is a founding writing instructor of the Hemingway Center’s Sawtooth Writing Retreat.

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Interviewing for narrative is like hunting for something in a pitch-black warehouse with nothing more than a flashlight. It’s a good flashlight — with a head you can twist to change the shape and range of the beam. Even so, finding what you’re looking for takes time and a deliberate process.

First, you need the wide beam to scan the room. The light is diffuse, so the details are fuzzy, but  you can see enough to get your bearings. It’s not strong enough to illuminate the other side of the room, so you move slowly and methodically, sweeping the beam back and forth, as if painting the room with light.

With some combination of luck and skill, your beam passes over a shape that appears to be what you’re looking for. You move closer, zeroing in, to see if it is what you think. You twist the lens of the flashlight to tighten the beam. It gets brighter, more like a laser. Now you can focus on the fine details as the rest of the room fades to black.

When you find the thing you’ve been looking for — a pivotal moment, scene, detail, dialogue, telling detail, and so forth — you know it right away. But you need at least another dozen such things, all of which fall into the category of, “You know it when you see it.” The search can feel tedious and inefficient. It takes time, tenacity and patience.

In nearly three decades of journalism, including an undergrad and a master’s, I have never taken a class or workshop that focused exclusively on interviewing, and certainly not on the particular demands of interviewing for stories rather than news reports. They exist, at least in a few places, but when I needed them most, I didn’t know how to find them — or how much I could have learned.

Now, after three narrative non-fiction books and many long-form magazine features, I’ve become keenly aware that interviewing for different kinds of pieces requires different approaches, skills, relationships and rhythms.

This becomes especially important when doing “reconstructed narratives” — stories about past events that you can’t witness in person. Vivid and credible reconstruction is fundamental to most narrative journalism, from magazine pieces to books and even when putting an immediate situation in the fuller context of time. Immersive reporting relies on observed scenes; fuller-sweep or explorations of past events are built from “reconstructed scenes.”

Every narrative writer has their own unique process. But after talking to a number of writers who specialize in narrative, I believe there’s a general progression: From broad and open-ended to narrow and specific.

In my own work and in the narrative nonfiction courses I teach, I’ve broken the process into four primary (but multi-faceted) stages or phases:

• Pre-interviewing to find and focus a viable story idea, identify a central character and gather needed information for a solid pitch
• Interviewing to outline the narrative arc and tension of a story, with a focus on the struggle or obstacle the central character faced
• Interviewing for sequence to build a timeline of pivotal moments and scenes that follows a character or situation from complication through plot points and tension to resolution
• Interviewing for scenes with a distinct point-of-view and camera lens (zooms in and out) to build cinematic structure and detail

In four posts to come, I explore each of these in detail, with examples from my work and that of some narrative masters.

* * *

Kim Cross is a journalist, historian and author of “What Stands in a Storm,” “The Stahl House” and “In Light of All Darkness.” She teaches graduate level Feature Writing for Harvard Extension School’s master’s degree program in journalism and is a founding writing instructor of the Hemingway Center’s Sawtooth Writing Retreat.

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