Finding Stories Behind the Stories

When I was a college senior and a broadcast communications major, I did an internship at a CBS affiliate in Lexington, Kentucky (WKYT, Channel 27). The year was 1987, and I was frequently paired up with a 25-year-old hot shot reporter on whom I had the world's largest crush.

So this reporter (let's just call him Clark Kent) and his side-kick camera guy often invited me to tag along with them on breaking news stories. And as I rode along in their news van, they would impart their wisdom, while I took copious notes.

It was on one of these sojourns that the news hottie gave me the golden advice which has actually served me for two full decades.

The police scanner in the newsroom crackled that there was an oil spill and that a Haz-Mat team was on site on winding, well-traveled Kentucky road. My eyes lit up when Clark cocked his head at me, and with a wink said, "Let's go get a news story." It was about 10 p.m., and we were going to broadcast live from the van for the 11 p.m. newscast once we got there.

When we got to the road in question, the intersection was ablaze with flashing police lights in pouring rain. Cars were lined up for a couple of miles, while a police officer in a rain slicker directed traffic, as the traffic signal wasn't working. But there were no Haz-Mat workers, and the only thing in front of us was a traffic snarl.

The reporter and I jumped out of the van, and he approached the traffic cop.

"I got nothin' for ya!" the officer shouted at us.

"Nothing? We heard there was a spill!" Clark shouted back.

"False alarm -- we had a Haz-Mat crew out here, but they found nothing, and in the meantime, this traffic light went out with the thunderstorm, so now I'm directing traffic," the officer replied.

Clark shrugged, and we hopped back into the van.

"OK," he said, "Tell me how you'd do this story."

I stared at him open-mouthed. Was he serious?

"You are kidding," I said.

"I am not," replied the Boy Wonder.

"There is no story," I said.

"Oh yes there is," he said, eyebrows raised into his forehead. "Think. What do you see?"

I looked outside the rain-spattered windows. "I see a line of cars."

"How far?"

"At least two miles."

"Good. What else?"

"I see rain, and I see a cop directing traffic. And I DON'T see a Haz-Mat crew, like we thought there would be."

"No, but who is in the cars?"

I studied the drivers and passengers.

"Moms and kids!"

He grinned.

"There's your story. There's always a story. How many people, on your estimation looking at this traffic pattern, had their evenings upset tonight?"

I paused to do some calculations. "If the traffic is moving at this rate, and there are on average two people per car, and this has been going on for the past hour ...."

"Right," he interrupted. "We can't really put a number on it for the viewers, but we can definitely say that traffic was backed up significantly because of a false call on an oil spill. People will get home from being on this road and will turn on the TV, wanting to know why they were sitting for 45 minutes at this intersection. And we're about to tell them why."

It was my first -- and probably my most important -- news coverage lesson in my entire career.

Why, you may ask?

Because, like I learned from Clark Kent, there is always a story behind a story. Maybe the story you envisioned isn't the actual story. But there's always one there, and it usually has to do with the disruption of people's lives -- an event that affected their normal routine. And of course we know that anything that interferes with the normal routine -- is news.

Now you may ask, what does this have to do with writing magazine articles?

Simple: Let's take as an example something that happened to me as recently as last night.

My child called out to me from his bed at about 11:15 p.m.  When I checked on him, he was talking in his sleep, although the yell for help was very loud and very real.

A disruption to the normal. Not a news event, you say? OK. Let's fast-forward to 20 minutes ago. We took a break from my work to drive to a comic book store. Every Wednesday, we pick up the latest installment on a Sonic the Hedgehog series. On the way home, as my child was thumbing through his new comic book, he said, "This looks like my bad dream last night."

Now he had my attention. When I pressed him, he described his late-night fears and how his latest obsession with a comic villain was invading his sleep. He'd seen this character on the Internet, and the scene in the comic book looked like what he'd seen in his dream.

My wheels started turning: How many parents might be dealing with their children's fears at night? It's a common issue dating back to the dawn of mankind, obviously, but what do you do about it? Then there was another spinoff story: My child has Asperger's Syndrome and gets abnormally obsessed with certain things. This leads to more stories .... dealing with the fears of children on the autistic spectrum. And what about video gaming? Who comes up with these characters, and if your child plays a certain number of hours per day, is he or she more prone to nightmares? Now I have story ideas for parenting magazines, psychologist trade magazines, teaching magazines, special needs child magazines .... and my audience is other parents, who may just need to hear from psychologists about dealing with night frights.

Do you get the picture?

Always step outside of yourself in any and every situation where your routine has been shattered. In my case, it was a cry for help from my child late at night.

Ask yourself, "Can I make this into a story? More than one story? What are my markets? Who is my audience? What is my angle? Who would I interview? What questions would readers want to know?"

Do this as a regular exercise during your days.

Soon, you will have so many story ideas that you literally will not have enough hours in the day to research and sell them all.

When Real Life Crowds Into Creativity

We have a sloppy, dripping Fourth of July today, and I feel like I'm sitting in Jane Austen's deluged  England rather than the hot and sticky Bluegrass of Kentucky.

I wanted to do some creative writing today. There are unfinished stories on two of my blogs that I would like to revisit. And frankly, as someone who writes for trade magazines to pay the bills, sometimes a little creativity is just the juice I need to refuel my tired brain.

But today, it wasn't happening.

Real life was encroaching.

You know how this works: You start to write, and all you can think about are the things that are creating worries. In my case, I shelve the writing and immediately start thinking about solutions to those worries. And then of course, all creativity is dissolved.

In this case, I've had several spinning plates during the past week, all related to onerous health care insurance policies and having to wait until October so that I can shop for an affordable plan under Obamacare. This may not sound like much to most people, but as a single mom who sees 60% of my freelance income absorbed by health insurers, it is a significant issue and regularly drains my energy and creativity.

And face it -- holiday weekends are no picnic for those of us who are divorced. If you have your child under roof, you worry about whether they are missing out on the benefits of a "traditional family." And if your child is with your ex-spouse, you are relegated to finding ways to caring for yourself while alone.

In my case, it was the latter today.

Now I'm not telling you all of this to trigger pity. Life is what it is. My point is that all of us have our own storm clouds. They take different forms. But just like the rain on the 4th of July parades and fireworks, they can dampen the most steadfast among us.

What I decided to do next was flip the tables on this rainy day. I did an Internet search for book stores that were open on the 4th of July. If I couldn't read a book in a hammock, eat a hot dog from a street vendor while watching a parade or lounge under the stars to watch fireworks -- and if my Muse was not cooperating due to the worries -- I'd create my own version of a "new" way to celebrate. I found a place where I could meander through bookshelves, inhale the wafting fragrance of brewed coffee and escape into the tales written by others.

And that's when it happened.

On a table reserved for books about artists was one with a simple title: "642 Things to Write About." The cover was designed to look like blue-lined yellow notebook paper. And within the pages were statements, questions, descriptions -- and open spaces.

They were things like this:

"You are a pirate. Describe your perfect day."

"Fix the plot of the worst movie you've ever seen."

"Write a love letter to a person you dislike."

"Pen an ode to an onion."

It was a journal of sorts, except it was a book for writers to kick start their writing juices. The writing "prompts" were compiled by members of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto.

How cool is that?

I bought the book, along with some greeting cards and small gifts for friends and some Kentucky Bourbon balls for myself, and here's what I'm going to do:

For the next 642 days, I'm going to tackle each one of these prompts. I don't know where this will lead, if anywhere. But my point is that when we are saddled with too much worry and care, sometimes we need the insistence of others -- in this case, the dear writers of San Francisco -- to get us going again.

Maybe one of these entries will lead to a short story for a magazine.

Maybe one will lead to the beginnings of a great book.

And maybe one will just give me what I need for that particular day so that I can accomplish that which is most difficult for me.

Does real life crowd into your creativity?

Take a deep breath. Take care of yourself first ... and along the way, you may be surprised to trip over the next thing to inspire you to move those mountains of worries aside.

Mastering the Focus

As a teenager, I was heavily involved with A cappella groups and often sang solos. One vocal instructor gave me a tip that, ironically, has affected the way that I write.

When sustaining a note for several measures, to avoid losing your breath or faltering on pitch, imagine a bouncing red ball in front of you. It travels from left to right, on a straight line. In your mind's eye, follow the ball as it bounces and focus -- not on the note you are singing -- but on the ball.

I received that advice at age 16, and it's funny how often I return to it. Lately, I've been practicing a lot of yoga, and I've also applied it there. While bracing myself for a tree pose -- sole of the foot against the other knee -- I focus on one point in the distance, and I envision that bouncing red ball. I never falter on the pose, as long as I keep that bouncing ball in sight.

Now when it comes to writing, this sense of focus is sharpened when applying this approach.

This week, I had some personal circumstances that really threw me emotionally. And as someone who scores as "Feeler" on the Myers Briggs personality test, a week like this hampers my ability to concentrate in a profoundly negative way. I had two stories to finish. Tuesday, my entire day was shot. I didn't write one word.

Then yesterday, as I waited in a pediatrician's office with my child, it occurred to me to recall the bouncing ball. And I realized that if I used my favorite go-to music as backdrop, it would achieve the same result as when I had to sustain those soprano notes.

I plugged in my earbuds on the laptop and pulled up the copy, focusing completely on the rhythm of the music and taking everything else that was bothering me out of my mind. I finished the story within 45 minutes -- one that had me churning for eight hours the previous day.

If you need to focus, try to figure out what will put you in that "hypnotic" state and then employ it as a tool. Even if you just sit quietly for a few minutes and imagine that bouncing red ball with your eyes closed, it has a remarkable effect on clearing your mind so that you can create.

Have any ideas for ways that you break through writer's block? I'd love to hear them! Post a comment.

Writing to the Cadence

One interesting thing I learned during my one and only pregnancy was that children in utero can be stimulated intellectually by music -- specifically Mozart. I used to spend a minimum of an hour a day with headphones plastered on my abdomen while my little boy kicked and moved to the cadence of Mozart's compositions. The theory was that IQ would be raised if a child listened to Mozart before he or she took a breath of oxygen. Even to this day, my child sits up and listens if I pipe Mozart through the car or the home.

The same can be said for your writing. A lot of people say to me, "How can you possibly write to music?" Frankly, I can't imagine writing without it. It's more than creating a mood for my muse -- it's a matter of connecting soul to heart to mind and channeling the energy from flowing scores into the keyboard of my laptop.

If you get stuck writing, at a minimum call up some classical music on Youtube and just soak it in with earbuds. I don't always stay with classical .... sometimes I stray to my favorite jazz artist, the sultry and soulful Diana Krall .... or I allow myself the guilty pleasure of my adolescent fascination with Michael Jackson or Prince. At other times, I need the fueling of a soundtrack from a film like "Prince of Persia," "Gladiator," or "Chronicles of Narnia."

So experiment with it. Try a variety of music via Youtube and see what inspires you to write. My guess is that we retain that innate connection with music that can be traced before birth, and as a result, we can channel it into composing our own lyrical prose.

Below are some of my favorite go-to selections to give you a few ideas: