Constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated

JCW -

Sorry to weigh in so late on your story, but I'm one of the sj members having trouble accessing the site this month. That said, thanks for posting.

I agree with Alma's assessment on the numbers gumbo at the top, and have read your response pretty carefully. In the workshop spirit then, I'm going to ask you a deceptively simple question:

What is this story about?

 

jgmacg, thanks for weighing in. I was hoping there'd be some other folks kind enough to share their opinions.

(From the third graph):
The story of Audrey Wallace is one of a Royersford native ... who discovered the right life on the Left Coast, and on her long, uplifting journey back to where it all began, brought a band of girls from a scarred community and a largely forgotten sport along for the ride.

I get where you're going with focusing the story ... but please keep in mind that I didn't just sit down and this is what happened. The goal from the onset was to produce an extended feature - broken up in "chapters" - detailing numerous separate timelines that eventually converge on a lacrosse field.

I don't feel that most of the topics - Wallace's struggles with alcoholism and growing up with the sport (a big part of the local angle), Santana High's shootings giving rise to its lacrosse team, the American Indian sponsors and the sport's history - should be excluded or shortchanged.

Perhaps I could have done without where the program may be headed, but I had written so much about the past that it only seemed right to look briefly into the future. Perhaps there's other things that could have been cut ...

I don't know ... I never really attempted anything like this before. Maybe I'm guilty of trying for too much.

 

JCW -

A couple of things to start...

- This is a terrific piece of work for an initial effort. And done on a tight deadline. Be very proud of it. And again, thanks for sharing it with us.

- Anything I say in regard to its construction or content isn't meant as a prescriptive, but rather as a suggestion. And the suggestions I make are aimed at helping as many writers here as possible.

- Like a few of the other regular posters here, I write long features of this kind for a living, and am sympathetic and empathetic to the hurdles you faced in writing it. So I'm on your side.

That said:

I'm going to write about two main issues.

The first is this: The piece is unfocused. It's a feature and a profile and a history and a biography and a news piece in nearly equal parts. That's what some of the readers here are responding to - especially when their first question is "How long is this?".

I don't think you're guilty of trying for too much - ambition counts for a lot in this business - so much as the problem may be that you're trying to do too much at once.

The symptom of which is that you've included virtually everything in the piece that you learned in the course of your research. I know this because I do the same thing. In my tiny household, we refer to this as the "Kitchen Sink" draft. I routinely write 15 or 16,000 words in my first draft knowing I'm going to cut a piece down to 10 or 12,000. I regularly cut my own stuff by a third or more before my editor ever sees it. I have the luxury, though, of lots of time to rewrite and edit my own work.

As a newspaper writer however, you don't have that luxury. So you have to be much better organized than I am. Before you ever sit down to write.

Which means that you have to have a really clear, singular intention for your long pieces. Meaning it's insufficient to say "I'm going to take these five ideas - coach, team, killings, history of the sport, sponsors - and launch them all and try to divvy them up into chapters to organize them." Architecture alone won't help you with a really complex piece. The things I just cited are story elements, not narrative ideas. A coherent narrative idea - the indispensable unifying theme of any long piece - is more along the lines of: "This is a story about salvation." "This is a story about failure." "This is a story about community."

Without that clear intention, no matter what details you shoehorn into the piece, or how you arrange them, the reader is left wondering why they're reading.

So the first thing a writer needs to figure out in the face of a long, complicated story is that one essential thing: What's this story really about? To see some fine examples of this, read Gary Smith. Every one of Mr. Smith's pieces has a unifying theme - even if it's only expressed in the first sentence and the last. Every word in between is written in service of that single, central idea. In fact, I keep a card posted over my desk that reads "What's the big idea?" to remind myself of that very thing.

Thus, when preparing to undertake your next big piece, devote yourself to figuring out that big idea. It may even change when you're halfway through the writing, but having a handle on it from the get will make the rest of the work fall into place much more smoothly.

My second note is this, and it's as much in response to some of the answers you've given here as it is to the piece itself.

Don't let yourself be overwhelmed by the volume of raw material any story brings with it.

A story isn't a story until the writer tells it. You, the writer, decide what stays in and what gets cut; what's necessary and what is not; what's been said and how and by whom and when and where it lands in the story. You control time and space and the people and the events and the environment they inhabit. All these things occurred in the real world, of course, and all these things are part of the truth of that world. But in the story, your story, you control them. You control them. How they unfold, and the impact they have on the reader is up to you. Nothing should go in a story that doesn't serve that story - and the central idea I just mentioned.

By definition, writing is a process in which lots of things are excluded, shortchanged, elided, cut, left out and glossed over. You have to be your own best editor and know what's integral to your story. This means being a little heartless in service of your own sanity and the greater good.

Alma's right about the numbers. In part because they're grouped so close together - they become a blur. And a few more voices in the piece would help your balance - you wouldn't have to rely so heavily on the coach. I'd also ask you to detail the physical description of the coach and move it way up in the piece.

That's about all I have time for tonight, but if you have any other questions, feel free to post them.

Thanks again for letting us see this.

 

Hey, thanks.

I do believe that's some mighty fine advice. I'm glad I posted.