SI's Chris Ballard on Williamsport High

Thanks to some bronchitis that seems to be going around my area, I ended up spending most of my uneventful day reading the new Sports Illustrated and flipped to the back for Chris Ballard's story on Williampsort High.

I really enjoyed it, and it definitely merited being the final story of this week's issue. I was curious to see if anybody else had read it, what they thought, if certain things worked and why, etc. I'm always down for a good discussion on craft.

 

Haven't read this particular piece yet, but Ballard has been pretty good lately at mining the kind of veins that Gary Smith has made a specialty - namely high school and community sports far off the national radar. He had the piece a few months ago about the Illinois high school wrestling coach, as well as some others.

 

Great read. Picked up the new SI this morning and read that one start to finish. Ballard is without a doubt one of my favorite longform writers.

 

There's been some talk on here about not asking a question in your story. Ballard's first sentence is a question. Thoughts?

 

I thought it was a very nice read. I knew nothing of the story. Solid back of the book piece.

 

Boston, I thought the exact same thing when I read Ballard's lede. I think it worked, but that brings up the question of do you never start with a question or does everything depend on the situation? Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of the whole question lede notion.

 

Did it work? I found it disorienting and cheap. Ballard's writing style often bores me. He never goes for flair, never takes chances.

I'm going to get yelled at for this post.

 

Why do we start a story with any type of sentence or approach?

We think it will work.

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

 

I meant questions in stories in general. A lot of great writers use them, but people on here say never ever in a million years not even if it's your last story use them.

I thought it worked because it establishes Zach's survivor guilt and the randomness of Brendon's death. He just happened to turn onto the road but he usually goes home a different way.

 

Part of good writing is knowing when and how to break rules. But before doing that, you should know what the rules are and why you are breaking them. If you aren't grounded in the fundamentals, it will show when you try to do something outside of your comfort zone.

 

Link?

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1206189/index.htm