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| Introduction | |
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| The disorganized, debilitated reporter | |
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| Learning to function more efficiently | |
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| The major commandment: Make it interesting | |
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| Raw Materials | |
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| How and where to get ideas | |
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| Picking the proper subject matter | |
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| The need for files | |
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| Finding and cultivating sources | |
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| Thinking about story ideas: Extrapolation, synthesis | |
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| Advancing story ideas: Localization, projection, viewpoint switching | |
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| What readers like and don't like: Dogs, people, facts, observers, numbers | |
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| Why the ideas with action in them are the best ideas | |
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| Shaping Ideas | |
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| The importance of forethought | |
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| Range of the story: Keeping it narrow | |
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| Theme of the story: The importance of the main theme statement | |
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| Developing the theme of a general profile or a microcosm profile | |
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| Approach of the story: The limits of the profile and the roundup | |
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| Tone of the story: Why it is important | |
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| Story Dimensions | |
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| Time: The importance of the past and the future, as well as the present | |
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| Scope: The quantity, locale, diversity and intensity of a development | |
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| Variety: Using various source levels and internal proofs | |
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| Movement: The built-in kind and the alternation of opposite elements | |
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| The reporter's role: Neither lawyer nor scholastic nor objectivist nor formula follower. But what then? | |
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| Planning and Execution | |
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| A six-part guide for the reporter | |
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| History: Does the main theme development have roots in the past? | |
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| Scope: How widespread, intense and various is the development? | |
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| Reasons: Why is it happening now? | |
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| Impacts: Who or what is affected-and how? | |
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| Countermoves: Who is acting to counter or enhance the development or its impacts-and how? | |
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| Futures: What could happen if the development proceeds unchecked? | |
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| A slightly altered six-part guide for preparing profiles | |
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| Another story element: Focus points and people. Descending to the lowest level of the action | |
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| A reporter's sources: Wise Men, Paper Men and Rabbis | |
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| Interviews and techniques in relation to storytelling | |
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| How long should the reporting take? When to begin writing? | |
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| Organization | |
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| Follow the laws of Progressive Reader Involvement: Tease me, you devil; tell me what you're up to; prove it; help me remember it | |
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| A first reading of materials gathered for the story: Refining the main theme statement, looking for conclusions, looking for endings | |
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| Indexing materials to help provide order | |
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| Rules of organization in writing | |
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| Keep related material together | |
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| Let what you have already written suggest what comes next | |
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| Try to isolate material from one source in one place | |
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| Digress often, but don't digress for long | |
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| Type of narrative lines: Block progression line; time line; theme line, and hybrids | |
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| The lead paragraphs: Why they are often elusive. What to do when they are | |
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| Handling Key Story Elements | |
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| Types of leads: Hard news, anecdotal, summary | |
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| Standards for anecdotal leads: Simplicity, theme relevance, intrinsic interest, focus | |
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| Why the general, or summary, lead is often better, difficult though it may be | |
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| Numbers: How to handle them; when to avoid them | |
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| People and quotes: Limiting the number of "talking heads" to emphasize the important actors in the story | |
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| Reasons to quote people: To lend credibility, emotional response, trenchancy or variety | |
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| Using anonymous quotes judiciously | |
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| When paraphrasing is preferable | |
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| Three roles for the reporter in the story: Summarizer, referee and observer | |
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| Wordcraft | |
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| Being specific in words and phrases | |
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| Being mean and tough with yourself and your turns of phrase | |
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| Choosing what to describe | |
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| How to describe well: Imagic exactness, the people principle, animation, poetic license | |
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| Promoting a conversational quality | |
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| The narrative flow and typical troubles with transitions, attributions and explanations | |
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| How "purposeful structures" in writing can promote speed, force and rhythm | |
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| Stretching Out | |
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| Some tips on handling lengthy stories: | |
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| The importance of maintaining orderly development | |
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| Alternating plot and character | |
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| Maintaining suspense and setting up material to come | |
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| Using typographical devices | |
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| Notes on Self-Editing and Style | |
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| Editing yourself for content, for conclusiveness and flow for pace and precision | |
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| The anguish of young writers, and how some overcome it | |
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| Reading for Writers | |
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| Full Texts of Sample Stories | |