Start with a story

Many years ago, the Associated Press in the United States was worried about how journalists wrote stories. It was especially concerned about how they wasted “narrative opportunities.” That is, they told beautiful stories badly.

As an answer to this, some of them were trained. Part of that training was the teaching of four elements which must be included in a story to make it compelling. Jerry Schwartz documents them in his book “Associated Press Reporting Handbook.”

I will delve into those four elements shortly. But once you know what they are, you can recreate any reality, pull apart any narrative into its essentials and mend any story badly told.

Schwartz’s book is almost two decades old since published in 2002, but since I read it, it has shaped the structure of my stories. Before then (and even since) sometimes, I succeeded in turning in delightful narratives, sometimes less so, but whenever I adhere to its principles, the stories sparkle.

More importantly, whenever you construct a narrative, you can tell whether you have done a good job or have told a mediocre tale.

It is like a comedian who uses the Benign Social Violation Theory as the only tool to tell jokes. A joke that will land or crash is immediately obvious to him.

I don’t know if that is why multiple bestselling non-fiction books are written by journalists in the United States. For example, not many people knew about emotional intelligence even though it was well known in scientific literature until Daniel Goleman, a science journalist, wrote a popular book about it.

Other bestselling works such as the ”Power of Habit”, ”Drive”, ”Tipping Point” and ”How Children Succeed” were all written by journalists.

Of course, a case has always been made about why stories work. Its introduction alone

Of course, a case has always been made about why stories work. Its introduction alone makes communication accessible. It doesn’t matter whether your grammar is clean or terrible. You may do it fluently or stagger through it, a story is powerful enough to get readers or audience to patiently read to the end.

makes communication accessible. It doesn’t matter whether your grammar is clean or terrible. You may do it fluently or stagger through it, a story is powerful enough to get readers or audience to patiently read to the end.

So what are those essential ingredients necessary for exciting stories?

One, character. Jerry Schwartz listed four elements but I’ve added a fifth one. However, a character is the first important component necessary.

“The character has to be somebody who the reader is going to be emotionally invested in and care about in some way, ” Bruce DeSilva, head of AP News features told Jerry Schwartz, ”you can love the character or you can detest him, which is a kind of caring. But there has to be an emotional investment,” DeSilva says.

But to do this, there must be characterization. It is not enough to list a character’s name and job title. It has to go deeper, for the character has to be real. However, this also is not rocket science. There are two ways you can develop relatable characters: through dialogue and action.

First, the writer must be familiar with the character, “so you can convey what that person is like— not by characterizing him by saying that he’s smart or funny or whatever but by showing his behaviour and speech in ways in which the character emerges,” DeSilva said,” the character emerges through action and dialogue. Not quotes.”

There is a simple difference between quotes and dialogue. For example, if you are a reporter, a quote is what someone tells us in an interview. And people knowing that they are being watched, present what they think people want to see or hear. A dialogue, however, is what we hear characters say to others or the dialogue we can recreate - within reason.

Two, a problem. ”The central character has to have a problem—a real problem that readers will take seriously,” Jerry Schwartz wrote.

Three, it is not enough to give the character a problem or highlight their difficulty, the character must struggle with the problem.

“That means the problem can’t be easily resolvable, either. If the character has a problem and she solves it, you have a paragraph. You don’t have a story, ” DeSilva said.

Fourth, resolution. ”You have the character defeated by the problem or overcoming the problem. Reallife isn’t that neat, but there must be some kind of change. You can’t have a character struggling and struggling and struggling right off the page with nothing happening. There has to be something that changes at the end that gives a sense of closure,” DeSilva told Schwartz.

“Without these four things— character, problem, struggle and resolution—a narrative will not work,” Schwartz wrote in the ”Reporting Handbook.”

“The good news is an awful lot of things in life that happen, happen

this way. They take this natural storytelling form. Because of that, the opportunities are everywhere,” Schwartz explained. Why should we tell stories in this manner?

DeSilva explains “there is plenty of academic evidence that information given to people in this form—in the form of real storytelling—is more likely to be understood, read all the way through and remembered than any other way in which we can give people information. . . . It’s entertaining, it’s interesting, it can take things that are news that might otherwise be on the dull side and make them fascinating. Because of instead of just giving the bare, dry facts, you’re dealing with the texture of people’s lives and their struggles, and so it makes everything interesting.

“Additionally, it’s a great explaining tool. There are certain kinds of stories that are simply impossible to understand until you tell a story about them. It’s like, ‘You’re having trouble understanding this. Well, let me tell you a story.”

Fifth, a setting. You have to put everything in a place. As told to Schwartz by DeSilva, enveloping everything in a place is one of the three ingredients of characterization (the other two being action and dialogue ), but I find it important enough to grant it its own place.

”You can’t write a story without a setting,” DeSilva said. ”Nobody’s going to create a movie that’s set nowhere. They’re often set in a place, and the place is often really important for creating mood and helping you understand people and motives; place often has a powerful influence on people and how they behave. A sense of place means reporting what it’s like there, what you see and hear and smell and taste that creates that sense of place on the page.”

There you have it. Next time you read or see a beautiful story - or a bad one - ask yourself these five questions. To what extent was the character developed through action and dialogue? Is the character’s problem serious enough for you to care? Did they struggle enough with the problem? Was there a resolution? Was the character defeated by the problem or did they triumph? At least, was there a change of any kind?

That is not all, you now have a kit with which you can assemble any story anywhere you want - sort of a lean mobile factory. So go ahead and take it. The only downside to this is that you can now predict how any story unfolds.

- This is a chapter from the new book I’m writing, ”The Power of a Generalized Specialist: Learn the Three Skills You Need to Dominate Your Field.”