How do I use this BNW Brown Bag?
I. The Power of Brevity
An introduction.
II. Award winning short stories
• Desperate Days at the Merlin: Donald “Joe” Peak, by Julie Sullivan
• Lottery has its own take on the story, by Russell Eshleman, Jr.
• Fighting for Life 50 Floors Up, With One Tool and Ingenuity, by Jim Dwyer
III. Talking Points & Assignment Desk
How to learn from BNW winners’ work, with a group or on your own.
IV. Feedback
How do you achieve brevity in your stories?
>> Download the PDF:
The Power of Brevity
>> BNW Index
Brown Bag #3
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Buy the book:
BNW books at the Poynter Bookstore.
ASNE Writing Awards
1. Concise writing comes from finding a focus and sticking to it. In her short stories, Julie Sullivan reveals her focus in the first or second paragraph and stays with it through the kicker. Identify the theme in her profile of Donald “Joe” Peak, and see how it is maintained in the middle of the piece.
2. Richard Aregood, a multiple ASNE-award winner for editorial writing, says that a short sentence is not always the best way to send a message. Even in a short story, Russel Eshleman, Jr. uses some long sentences. Count the words in the second paragraph of “Lottery has its own take on the story.” Although the sentence is long, it’s not difficult to comprehend. What makes the sentence work for the reader?
3. In order to save space and move the stories along, Jim Dwyer prefers quotations that also convey action. Read his story and discuss how this strategy of quoting affects the reader. What value is gained by having a character describe parts of the action?
Assignment Desk: Exercises in Achieving Brevity
1. Create a folder of excellent short news stories using the work of Sullivan, Eshleman, and Dwyer to begin your collection. Whenever you see a jewel of a story in a newspaper or magazine, clip it out and add it to your file. Let your colleagues contribute or create a folder that the entire newsroom can build. Read these any time you feel that your writing is getting flabby.
2. Using Julie Sullivan’s profile of Donald “Joe” Peak as a model, report and write a profile in 350 words or less.
3. Using Russell Eshleman’s story about the lottery numbers as a model, report and write a daily story on your beat in 500 words or less.
4. Using Jim Dwyer’s story as a model, find an object that has a meaningful story hiding inside it. Report and write the story in 800 words or less.
5. Read over some of the shortest stories you have written. Revise them with the purpose of maknig them tighter and more focused.
6. Join the Ten Percent Club and agree to cut 10 percent of your story before submitting it for publication. (There’s even a membership card to impress your friends and colleagues!)
(Karen Brown Dunlap, editor of Best Newspaper Writing 1991 and 1992, and Roy Peter Clark, who interviewed Jim Dwyer for Best Newspaper Writing 2002, contributed discussion questions and exercises.)
More Resources
• The Ten Percent Solution, by Chip Scanlan
• Writing Short, Writing Well in a 50-inch Web World, by Chip Scanlan
• Write Good and Short, by Roy Peter Clark
• Surgery Without Pain, by Chip Scanlan
Zinsser, William. On Writing Well. 25th Anniversary Edition.
New York: Harper Resource, 2001.
>> Next: Feedback
