The Ma Siss's Place series in the Boston Globe came to an end yesterday. It leaves us wondering and hoping -- and, maybe, praying if we were really affected. In this blogger's opinion, vivid narrative, requiring first-hand reporting (watching and writing all the little details) touches the human condition and can reveal supreme truth.

Before we move on, one last highlight showing that in newspapers, in features and definitely more literary narrative-style stories, there is a need dialogue:

As Nadia, joined by two little girls, danced and clapped and stomped her shoes, the small gathering rose to its feet. Ralph rose with them, and led the turn to prayer.

"Lord, we're looking forward to the day when this church will be too small," he said. "We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that's what you want to happen."

"Yes, Lord," Arlene shouted.

And then, for the last time, Aaron got up to preach.

"My vision for this church is Ma's vision for this church, which is that you come as you are," he said, as a chorus of "Amens" began to rise. "And that you would feel welcome to walk in here right off the streets. You wouldn't have to worry about what you're wearing, or if you've cleaned up your life first before you walk through those doors."

As he worked his way through his list of exhortations, he began to cry. As someone shouted, "let it out baby," he mentioned Dora, who hadn't been seen in the church for months.

"As Dora always taught me to say, it's never good-bye, it's see you later."

The congregation began to cheer.

And if you these long features take too much time for you, as always, try to check out the video and photo gallery.

The third installment of the Boston Globe's Ma Siss's Place series hits our hearts on Christmas. It tells the tale of a charming drug addict, Dora, the only daughter of Ma Siss, leaving us with hope; although, judging by her hitherto behavior, she might end up on the streets again. Nonetheless, she admits her relapses to the tightly knit congregation of Ma Siss's Place, an evangelical church based out of a garage on Quincy Street in Dorchester. She admits that she let her family down: "How can I tell people about the church, and that I love the church, I don't set a good example."

Meet Dora Vaughn, but make sure to take notice of this stellar, vivid description of her: "A sullen face under a straw hat, cheeks moistened from the hot stove, poked around the partition."

After her latest series of undulations with sobriety, Vaughn came back home to her mother -- and to Jesus. Her fellow Quincy Street parishioners accept her with open arms:

"Ann approached Dora, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Cathi, cradling her son Levi in her arms, went over to lay her hands on, too. And Aaron joined in, placing his hands on Dora's shoulders. Tears were streaming down his face.

"'Father, God, we thank you for our sister, Dora,' he began. 'We thank you for bringing her back home today.'

"And then he launched, singsong, into an impromptu litany of praise.

"'You're a God of second chances,' he said. 'You're a God of third and fourth and fifth chances, God. And Lord, we just pray, God, that you would be with her, Lord, so that you would just protect her, God, protect her from the evil one, Lord, help us, Lord, to encourage her, God, and to play our part, God.'"

Wow! That's some great, real action and dialogue. That type of stuff can only come from immersion, which is key to literary non-fiction.

Vaughn could not escape her past. A police officer pulled her over for an expired registration and then arrested her on four warrants.

Around Christmas time last year, as hope for Vaughn's human revolution seemed to be in peril, crises were prevalent for the low-key, neighborhood place of prayer. Vaughn makes a New Year's resolution to avoid doing "things at the spur of the moment," to just "think it out carefully," to avoid getting "into a lot of trouble." But money was running out (some of the community members, according writer Michael Paulson, speculated the cash was stolen by Vaughn). The Saturday masses began to dwindle in attendance. Aaron and Amy, the two enthusiastic missionaries from the South, became absent much of the time because of graduate school. Violence, crime and poverty continued to wreak havoc on members of the family and neighborhood. Even a natural disaster had its way with garage-based church. All of this sure makes for a good story, adding tension and suspense.

Let's see what the future looks like for Ma Siss's place tomorrow in the final segment in this four-part series. As always, we make sure to check out the lovely video and photo gallery.

In the video, Dora sings, "Victory is mine. Victory is mine. Victory, today, is mine."

Aaron Graham, a Southern Baptist Missionary, set aside an easy life to endeavor to Boston with $300 and relinquished himself of all amenities. He found Ma Siss, the lovable lady whose burgeoning, modest Quincy Street Missional Church in Dorchester needed a preacher. Today we are told his story. This is the second part of a four part special report in the Boston Globe called “Ma Siss’s Place.”

“He imagined himself, like one of Jesus' disciples relying on the good will of others to get by,” Paulson writes. “He coveted a hard test of faith.”

This is really a priveledge in feature/narrative writing. You have the authority to say the subject thought, felt or imagined.

Throughout the article, we are given “Aaron,” not Graham. In most newspaper reports, and even features, we are only given the last name, unless we are focusing on a family or married couple. This is just another aspect of narrative/feature writing in newspapers.

“Tall and angular,” writes Paulson, “with an outlander's soft accent and manner, he was a virtual unknown, a spiritual tourist in an old town. She was a bedrock figure in her troubled Dorchester neighborhood, a large, laconic presence known by her nickname (her given name is Idene Wilkerson) and by her dream of a new church born in a chop shop.”

This is the visual contrast that puts meaning into this story. Graham is some white kid who comes to Dorchester, a community consisting of mostly African-Americans. What beautiful pluralism this church displays.

During one scene, Graham brings his newly acquired Cherokee girlfriend to the first prayer service he is asked to lead: “Amy pulled out her guitar and began to play Christmas songs. Ma Siss made soup. Aaron left to run an errand, and Amy spent the morning stringing green beans with Arlene. Aaron and Amy came back the next Saturday, then each weekend after that. Ma Siss or her daughter, Dora, would make a grits and sausage breakfast, and Aaron and Amy would discuss a Bible passage or answer questions about Christianity.”

(Shout out: Northeastern University is one of the first key scenes in this story, where Graham becomes more acquainted with Ma Siss and realizes she’s earnest about her ambitions with the church.)

I’m really impressed by this character, Aaron. One of my favorite parts: “Aaron preaches in a conversational style, weaving his sermons into the service without a clear beginning or end, open to interruption by himself or others. He walks back and forth, as if pacing in some imaginary cage, and uses his long arms to punch the air to accentuate a point. Often, when saying something particularly prayerful, he closes his eyes.”

“[A]s if” is the finest two words in this paragraph. They enable the writer to imagine and the reader to understand. A cage is appropriate, in this instance, because Graham is preaching about powerlessness. It’s interesting that the neighborhood conferred the title of pastor on him, but Graham believes everyone needs to take responsibility as a minister of God.

Love this scene setting: “By the spring of 2003, people had begun to think seriously that this earnest little group in this broken down building, with floors sloped so the auto oil would run down to a drain, with a green carpet covering the cement and paper curtains to cover the walls, might invite the presence of God….A broken piano had a makeshift crèche of religious statuary arranged atop it. Slightly deflated balloons - the remnants of some recent celebration - hung from metal pipes along the ceiling. White paper fans had been attached to the green walls as a form of decoration. On shelves above the chairs were dozens of cans of tomatoes and boxes of canned stuffing. A cat named Church wandered across the floor, the congregation's attempt to deal with a mice problem.”

Let’s keep going: “Dora decided it was time for prayer. She hit a pot with a spoon.

“Ma Fann, her head wrapped in a colorful scarf, leapt out of her seat, the first to testify.

“‘I could just fly in here this morning,’ she blurted out. She had good news: Her granddaughter's deployment to Iraq had been postponed.

“‘God is a mighty God,’ she said, working her voice up to a shout. ‘I know the Lord is good. Glory. Hallelujah. Yes, Lord. I thank Him.’

“Then Ma Siss jumped in. She doesn't have the strength to stand during worship and was sunk into a deep soft chair. Her voice rose slowly as she talked about the birth of the church.

“ ‘What we have been praying and asking for is coming to show in our lifetime,’ she said, ‘and it just such an uplift. Make us so high that we don't know what to think. Just look what God is doing.’

“She slammed her hand down on a nearby table.

“‘He ain't let us down yet. He ain't failed us. He done brought us this far - he ain't gonna let us go now.’

Graham has much experience facing disparity.

The Virginian later mused about American megachurches: "As I got older, I was like, OK, half the world is living on less than $2 a day, and we don't talk about this?" he said. "We were raising $400,000 for a new church organ, so I calculated how many chapels we could build. . . . Some people were like, yeah, that's so true, but the music minister did not like me for it."

This consciousness was developed when Graham, as a child, accompanied his father on missions to Liberia and Kuwait. In Liberia, the youngling fed a starving baby a hard boiled egg and tried to attend his funeral when he died of starvation. There, at age 6, he wanted to be baptized in snake-infested water, which seems like a powerful non-fiction metaphor.

This blog post is already epic – tantamount to reading the actual article – but I must highlight this anecdote:

“[A]t just about 5 a.m. on Aug. 2, 1990, Aaron heard the noise.

“He was 10 years old, and sound asleep, and there was a rumble outside that sounded like the garbage man.

“Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait City.

“That morning, the Graham house was entered four times by Iraqi troops, and on one occasion, a soldier began assaulting his mother. To this day, Aaron believes his mother was spared the worst because he burst into tears, and the soldier backed off.

“‘That was a spiritual mark on my life, because I thought, either I could be killed, or my parents could be killed,’ Aaron said. ‘It was the first time in my life that I was confronted with the fact that I might lose my life, and where would I spend eternity? And then I saw a soldier a couple hours later, dead on the side of the road…

“Ultimately, under intense international pressure, the women and children were allowed to leave; to this day, Aaron believes his father and the other adult men were later freed because the prayers of Baptist ministers back home caused Saddam to have a troubled dream.”

Graham takes his experience to Ma Siss’s place where he preaches about addiction, utilizing references to 12 step programs (admitting powerlessness) and the Boston Red Sox season (“All things are possible.”)

Make sure to watch the video and check out the slide show.

Let’s look forward to tomorrow, a special Christmas article, in which we will learn more about Nora, Ma Siss’s drug addicted daughter.

I forgot this lengthy, telling quote from yesterday:

"You know one thing, I'm so glad that I was born poor," she said. "because I know how to live poor. . . . I don't buy nothing that isn't on sale, and when it's on sale I buy enough to last until another sale comes. A lot of things I just won't do. I won't go and pay $50 for a pair of shoes, I won't do it. . . . Before I goes and spend like $50 or $100 on a pair of shoes, I just gonna buy a lot of food to give to peoples. Ma Fann told me today, 'You got to stop doing that,' but I just rather help another person, because I'm just happy with what I got."

Many times editors will argue that a quote is too long. But for features like these, a nice long quote can reveal a lot about someone's character.

A narrative of biblical proportions – pun intended – appears in the Globe today. 4,635 words! And this is only the first in a four part series. Yesterday, the Globe prefaced this fete with a banner that appeared at the bottom of the front page.

“From a Dorchester chop shop, a place to pray,” the first story is titled. It depicts a Baptist woman, Ma Siss, who came from the south to Boston in the early 1960s to face an onslaught of obstacles, including that there were no suitable evangelical churches in the area. One problem was bussing, or school desegregation, which led to racially motivated youth violence in Boston. Drug addiction and other inner city issues afflict the family as well. But, led by Ma Siss, her family and friends face life struggles and, to fortify their spirits, create their own home for God. Let’s look into Ma Siss’s Place, also known as the Quincy Street Missional Church:

“Today, the garage still vibrates as the MBTA commuter rail passes overhead, ferrying commuters from the fast-growing suburbs southwest of Boston to the high-rise office towers of the city's financial district,” writes Globe Staff writer Michael Paulson. “And the yard is still a sight: often filled with castoff washing machines and refrigerators, piles of used clothing, an occasional walker, a beat-up tricycle.

“But the garage's main walls, inside and out, are now covered with murals depicting young black men and women walking toward Jesus. A plain wooden cross, fashioned from stained oak boards, is mounted to a white wall. And each Saturday at 1, as chicken fries in vats of oil or ham bakes in an oven, several dozen people, many of them African-American women of a certain age, come together for worship in the former auto bay.”

The story starts with such description, context and history. Paulson justifies the newsworthiness of the story by explaining how this is an oddity, to have a community create a Christian evangelical place to pray in Massachusetts where there are little to no megachurches, like in the South.

This story really allows me to empathize with Ma Siss, who seems so, so nice. One of my favorite parts had to do with her awe for -- and acquisition of -- fine china, which was symbolic of fragile fortune to Ma Siss. (She made a living cleaning the homes of affluent white people, washing their fancy dishes. When Ma Siss gets china of her own, she puts it in on display, but uses paper plates for meals.) My next favorite part involved blood clots and how her mother died from them, and then the story describes how Ma Siss developed them, but faces death fearlessly with faith. Last, Ma Siss attended a "variety of black Baptist churches in Boston" before founding her own. She found that socio-economic prejudice was prevalent in these churches, where she was offended when a priest criticized those who wear Payless shoes (Ma Siss wears Payless shoes).

I can’t wait for the next three parts. Maybe they will be centered on other characters. Or, maybe they will stay centered on Ma Siss and will use her as a gatekeeper to take us to other characters through anecdote. Here, we see that tomorrow will brings us into the church services and activities. Tuesday will yield the tale of Dora, Ma Siss’s only daughter, who is addicted to heroin, and how the church tries to help her. Wednesday we get a vision of the future for the Missional Church (what a nice photo of a baptism that goes with this, despite the towel holder’s head being a little bit cut off).

These next three days should mean good reads. Let's stay tuned.

Special Features: We are presented with a lovely photo gallery and video. It seems that each segment in the story will come with both of these multimedia features.

While perusing my Romenesko e-mail update today (note: for non-journalists, or the media illiterate reporter, this is a regularly updated media newsletter provided by the Poynter Institute, through writer Jim Romenesko) I spotted this little ditty that detests anecdotal ledes --and rightly so.

Anecdotal ledes are like getting a blue balls, if you know what I mean. They are deceiving. It seems like the writer is going to tell you a story. Characters are employed. A scene is set. And a poignant dilemna emerges or a relevant issue arises. But then, once the reader's interest becomes piqued, the characters described just disappear. A bevy of heavy information is unveiled that may be useful but can cause stress, especially, when a sumptuous potential story is stifled beforehand.

While Will Shuck from Capitol Weekly, the newspaper of California government and politics, would rather have the straight-up info sans anecdotal lede to quicken communication of the actual news, allowing the reader to immediately approach the important facts, so as to avert the "fear of looking stupid for not knowing what's going on," I would argue differently. Yes, inverted pyramid structure is entirely appropriate for most news. Anecdotal ledes, however, are acceptable in one condition: if the entire article will tell a story. And more stories need to be told in newspapers to save them from foundering.

If there were less useless anecdotal ledes employed in what should be straight-up inverted pyramid reports AND more engaging, full-blown narrative stories, maybe newspapers would not "sit on counters and tables in reception areas, big piles of them, unmolested, undisturbed, unread, only to be replaced the next day by a new pile, more current events diorama than genuine info hub."

Anecdotal ledes could be useful to introduce a subject, some stats, or a trend, from a humanized angle, but should be followed by more anecdotes. Either the story being told in the anecdotal lede deserves a follow-through, or other anecdotes should be canvassed to explain all aspects of an issue. NO FALSE-FLAG NARRATIVE!

In the Boston Globe yesterday, a report appeared that uses a narrative lede and follows with several instances of scene setting. It's told from the point of view of Ruth Shiavone in regard to a new buffer zone for protesters around abortion clinics.

We have sensory details: Shiavone started "softly discussing her objections" to the state's new law, but when a young woman walked toward the main entrance Schiavone raised her voice and immediately changed her tone. We have chronology: "yesterday morning" and "around 8 a.m." And we have visual description: "Schiavone stood on the other side of the street for much of the morning, holding a sign that read 'A child is a gift from God.' " It makes me feel like I was really there at the clinic Saturday morning with a clear understanding of the parameters of the new buffer zone as compared to the old ones.

Abortion law is an issue that needs to be humanized. We are dealing with pregnant women who must be going through an emotional experience and strong minded religious types who feel abortion is unjust. But this report just makes me wonder what the women who were getting an abortion felt, emotionally, when approached by one of these protesters, or "sidewalk counselors." To get this point of view, this side of the story, the reporter must venture to approach the pregnant women along with the protesters and, hopefully, they will speak, whether on a basis of anonymity or not. This would be difficult but ultimately valuable to the reader.

A disturbing report from Wichita, Kan., details the nonsensical Taser zapping of a hearing impaired man who is "basically deaf" without his hearing aid. This is a TV station; so, I'll give them a break. But if I was working at a newspaper in the area, I'd be pleading to write a narrative account of this one.

The online print story the TV station put out starts out well: "Donnell Williams had just gotten out of the bath tub, wearing only a towel around his waist, when he turned the corner to see guns pointing right at him." Wow! But from there on, I'm disappointed.

I would have used some live action dialogue: "I can't hear! I can't hear!" he says while gesturing to his ear. Then, a little more reporting, I'd find out what the police were saying to him, albeit inaudible to the main character (I'd make sure to mention that).

I'd gather as many sensory details as possible and take the reader right unto the point where the Taser touches his skin.

Then, I'd fool with chronology and take the reader to the dispatch center -- and with some more reporting -- I'd get the 911 tapes for more dialogue from whoever supposedly reported a shooting in the area. I'd talk to the police some more. Why did they decide to use the Taser? I'd like to know more about this guys background, he seems so innocent.

Lastly, I'd go forward in time, back to the bathroom where this poor man is being shocked. I'd be sure to capture all the tactile feelings, sounds, and smells. From here, the only thing left to do is to describe the aftermath, to elaborate on the emotions with quality quotes, and investigate what consequences the police department will face.

What irks me most about this is that he was near a bath tub. He could have been electrocuted to death. Eek!

Belated Blog Hits (3 out of 3)

Yesterday, as the center piece for the New York Times weekly section called The City, this enheartening bit appeared. There are a lot of narrative morsels in this piece, however, I wouldn't call it a full-fledged story as much as a nice, warm action profile.

"The Chicken and Rice Man" illustrates how the "elfin" Jorge Muñoz, a former illegal immigrant from Columbia who has now become a U.S. citizen, is providing homeless immigrants here with hot dinners.

One of my favorite grafs: "When Mr. Muñoz’s truck pulled in, several workers pressed their faces to the tinted windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of dinner. Hopping into the back of the truck, Mr. Muñoz began untying steaming containers filled with hot chocolate and foil-covered trays of homemade barbecued chicken. As the workers accepted Styrofoam containers stuffed with hearty portions of chicken and rice, they thanked him as respectfully as if he were a parent, never mind that the 5-foot-2 Mr. Muñoz, with his buzz cut and boyish grin, could pass for 20-something."

If you read the print edition, it would lure you online, where you can watch "An Angel in Queens," a multimedia presentation, narrated by the writer, Adam B. Ellick.

In the presentation, one hungry, homeless immigrant explained: "It's not because politician. No, no, no, no. He do that because he has a very, nice sweet heart. He's an angel. He's a god. He's an angel god."

Ellick elaborates, "For many New Yorkers Thanksgiving is a weekend stint in volunteerism. But for the Munoz family, it is just another day."

Belated Blog Hits (2 out of 3)

The Cape Cod Times, a much respected newspaper here in Massachusetts, concluded its 14-part mini-mystery novela on Nov. 17. This was brave, I think, to put this on the front page and neatly tucked on the bottom left corner of the page with four to seven grafs.

The series is titled "Collectors: A Cottage Colony Mystery." It's all about this strange family who has a home down the Cape. All the nuances of Cape life are sure to appear: Christmas Tree Shop, hobbies, Yankee Magazine, Labor Day, antiques.

The quality of the characters and the story, however, just didn't peak my interest. It was, too, soap opera- or Lifetime-esque.

Here's some pieces to illustrate what I mean:

"Jeremy had been walking to the last cottage — the unrented one — to see why the door was open, at the same moment Harry and Sylvia pulled up to their place and got out of their car. Looking, Jeremy could not help but notice, like a couple in love.

"A couple from the L.L. Bean catalog, in love.

"Was everyone patching things up except him, he wondered as he stood there, trying to think of something to say besides, 'How nice: matching barn coats.' Sylvia broke the ice."

* * *

" 'What happened?' Jenny asked Fred, who seemed to be in a daze.

" 'Your father shot me, that's what happened,' Mandy said, staring at Fred through teary eyes.

" 'I didn't shoot her,' Fred said, shaking his head as he looked plaintively at his daughter.

"Then his eyes shifted to his wife. 'Why were you going to stab me?'

" 'I wasn't going to stab you,' she moaned.

" 'You had a knife,' he said.

" 'The knife is worth a lot of money,' she said. 'I was going to use it to buy your half of the house. I want a divorce.'

" 'So do I,' Fred said.

" 'You didn't have to shoot me to get it,' she said, as Jenny went to direct the EMTs.

" 'I didn't shoot you,' Fred said softly, using his shirtsleeve to wipe a trickle of blood from Mandy's arm. 'I was going to give the gun back to Sylvia.' "

* * *

Well, I hope The Times, at least, encouraged other newspapers to experiment with this type of thing, and hire fiction writers and literary journalists.

Belated Blog Hits (1 out of 3)

This agonizing narrative appeared Tuesday, Nov.3 in the St. Charles (Missouri) Journal. It's a really heavy report and there was narrative approach to it. It reads like a short story, but the newspaper probably could have stepped this up a notch, with the investigation and sensory elucidation.

There were poor editorial decisions. I think they could have used the name and used compassion when reporting on the children involved. The Journal balked a little.

In an outburst of virtual vigilantism, readers of blogs such as RottenNeighbor.com and hitsusa.com have posted the Drews' home address, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and photographs. Now more vigilant and wise newspapers like the L.A. Times have taken over this case. And the Boston Globe reprinted it today. The story is the sixth most popular story this hour on Boston.com .

Here are some bloodthirsty quotes from The Journal's comment board.

"This a terrible occurance. What happened to megan is terrible and i am sorri for ur loss," said thirteen-year-old Eden Maree Hemera. "[A]nd find t that family is cruel and should not get away with wat they done. for a pperson to do that to a nother human being is disgusting. they wont get away with this. "

Another commentor went without a name. She simple addressed herself as "madnurse."

"I just recently read in the Sun Sentinal newspaper in Florida tha account of this terrigle crime," madnurse said. "Hate crime? Child abuse? Internet stalking? Child Prediator? There must be some way to make the parents who instigated This crime pay for what they did to that child. I work in a pedi ER and what they did is a crime. Lets put a name on it. They need to be listed as child prediators. I wouldn't want them near my children. Doesn't the district attorney have any way to press some kind of charges against the adults who tromented a trouble child???? God help us if we let them get away with shis. Someone Please Help! "

From the L.A. Times piece:

Dozens of people allegedly have called local businesses that work with the family's advertising booklet firm, and flooded the phone lines this week at the local Burlington Coat Factory, where Curt Drew reportedly works."I posted that, where Curt works. I'm not ashamed to admit that," said Trever Buckles, 40, a neighbor whose two teenage boys grew up with Megan. "Why? Because there's never been any sense of remorse or public apology from the Drews, no 'maybe we made a mistake.' "

Another narrative from the St. Petersburg Times today, on the front page no less. It's a humorous criminal justice experience: an undercover cop and the people he busts (you). This is fun because it plays around with traditional sentence structure, grammatical tense and point of view (second and third -- and in a few instances, first).

"Anything you stole, he'd take it off your hands. Jewelry. Guns. Drugs. Cars. Boats," Times Staff Writer S.I. Rosenbaum tells us, the criminals.

Lots of hypotheticals here: "he would" and "he could" and "you could" and "you might." I like.

We get some funny anecdotes. A woman he previously arrested entered the store front and said he looked familiar. Almost blew his cover.

"Once he found himself giving an old lady advice over the phone about her ailing VCR. She called him back an hour later. He had fixed her problem.

"What was he doing?"

Wow, seems like this last sentence is in the first-person.

Here's another example that mixes first- and second-person point of view: "I can spot one a mile away, you might say, and the man behind the counter would nod, looking impressed."

It's the triple crown of points of view in this prose. The only thing I would have done is space them out, seperating the consecutive second-person point of view sections, with the one that comes after. Enjoy the stool pigeon!

Today we get a feature from the Kansas City Star about a recovering marine who lost his leg in Iraq during an explosion caused by an improvised explosive. He has a textured story, rife with trials and tribulations, yet the narrative lacks the storytelling dynamics that, I would argue, could make this shine much brighter.

The man, apparently, saved someone's life but writer Eric Adler failed to mention this.

The newspeg that is used as a hook for this narrative is really irrelevant to the story, except that it brings the national limelight to this guy. (“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” is slated to help him out, honoring him only because, as Adler intimates, Veteran's Day is approaching.)

The man seems to have a real make-good-out-of-whatever-life-throws-him attitude. I feel like the the ABC makeover could have been an end to the story, not a means, but that's just me -- and what do I know?

“I was thinking it could be real easy to die,” he said to the Star. It would have been fun to be put in his head, like this: "It could be real easy to die," he thought. And then get all the sensory details straight from his point of view.

What if this great chorus of "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome," was to be the core of the story. It's implied in the story that he thought of this phrase while priming to become a marine and while in combat, simultaneously struggling with his marriage. I think this could have been used as a chorus at least one more time; it could have been used as a marking point for chronology.

Lastly, do we seriously need to censor one of the only parts of the story where this mean marine opens up and reminsices with a little humor? While being operated on, after losing his leg, a medic bumps into his injury and he responds, “If you bump my leg again, I’m going to punch you in the (sensitive place).”

Props for putting this on the front page, and I don't mean to nitpick, just doing my job on the blog.

On the front page of the St. Petersburg Times today, a new edition of Encounters appears. Ben Montgomery, Times Staff Writer and Nieman notable, delivers a nightclub experience chalked with terror. What makes this a meaningful narrative is the main character -- a rapper whose lyrics seem to sensationalize gun violence -- and the changes brought forth by this horrible night.

The original story of this shooting death appeared in mid-October; but, now we get this feature from a different point of view -- an ironic and powerful story.

Encounters is a segment of the St. Pete Times "dedicated to small but meaningful stories." Montgomery wrote the first one, but more on that and a workshop he spoke at in Cambridge will appear here later in an edition of REFLECTIONS.

The only criticism I can offer for this piece is that I wish he used a second set of "* * *" stars to partition the context of the rapper's past, to pop back into the nightclub scene, preferably, right before this: "He thought at first a speaker had blown ..."

Otherwise, this is a picture perfect story. One of my favorite parts is that he described the signs the rapper saw on the way out of the building. NO HATS, NO DURAGS, NO LONG T-SHIRTS, the sign read. (Montgomery did not use quotes and kept the words all in caps.) He captured all the sounds and sights and feelings. Excellent.

The St. Pete Times is very friendly to narrative. How about other newspapers?

BOSTON -- While studying at the School of Journalism at Northeastern University, I met a wiry, coffee-eyed writer named Jordan Novet. He introduced me to "narrative journalism" last year, showing me newspaper clippings and giving me a book called The Journalist's Craft: A Guide To Writing Better Stories.

Prior to meeting Jordan, I didn't delineate between the banal approach to event coverage, for instance, and the vivid story telling that is possible in a standard news assignment. We started discussing different ways to approach an article: point of view, scene setting, character development, conflict and resolution.

People would enjoy print journalism more if there was an increased emphasis on "stories" at newspapers, he said. I agree. Well written stories can touch the human condition, peaking one's interest through passion, pity, humor and terror, I think. Jordan's goal is to write stories that allow people to have an increased appreciation of their lives. So we talk about the different techniques for stories in newspaper form, discuss opportunities for narrative, and criticize the attempts at narrative we see.

"Aaaahh!" Jordan exclaimed one day. "Look at the front page of the Globe! Smack-dab in the middle, a narrative! It even comes with special headline type! And this is the first of three parts! Hurrah! I can't wait to read it. Let's read it."

Jordan left Northeastern to study at the Missouri School of Journalism. But, as he continues his studies at the Missouri School of Journalism, we frequently exchange stories through e-mail. "Tell me what you think," he says.

Today, I'm embarking on an endeavor to bring this experience to fellow journalists and readers alike. The mission of Tripping on Truth is to discuss storytelling technique in journalism. The focus will be on how vivid narrative affects the success of newspapers, but magazine material will be discussed as well. Tripping on Truth believes that the narrative form, when implemented properly, can reveal truths about the human condition and can cause elation, even enlightenment, in a way the prototypical "inverted pyramid" report could not.

Tripping on Truth will run the occasional reflection piece, like this one -- at the most, once a month -- expressing my, and other journalists', experiences with the state of narrative in the newspaper world. But typical entries -- published regularly -- will provide a link to a timely narrative, include brief commentary, and hopefully, many journalists, and readers alike, will be able to join in discussion.

For those who are still lost on what I'm getting at, here are two articles about apartment fires that left occupants homeless:

Narrative
Inverted Pyramid Report

Which one did you like more?

For those who are curious, here is a few of Jordan's articles that use the narrative approach:

Cranes
Hands-in Experience
Parkour (Note: This article came well before the New Yorker piece on this emerging sport.)

Here are a few of mine:

ROTC members gain ARMY outlook (Jordan was my writing coach on this one, my first attempt at narrative storytelling. I definately could have beefed this up with some stats as a nutgraf; don't mind the copy editing errors.)
Northeastern student victimized, gains empathy
Students go deep -- for fish, that is (I took the photos for this piece!)

REFLECTIONS is a segment of Tripping on Truth that will use the narrative technique to describe experiences journalists have with the practice of storytelling and to observe the state of narrative in the newspaper world. It will appear once or twice a month.