The No. 1 Clip in Your Packet. . .

[daemon]

What is the best story you ever wrote?

Be as detailed as possible without outing yourself....Why was it so good? Was it the material? The execution? How did it come to fruition?

Would love to hear the answers of some of the board's longer-tenured writers.

Jones? Gee?

 

[PeteyPirate]

There was this rec notebook I had that led off with a local kid who made the quarterfinals of a junior tennis event. Then i wrote about some guy who had come thisclose to bowling a perfect game. Catch your breath. I rounded it out with some bullets announcing registration for softball camps and soccer leagues.

I expect the offers to come rolling in soon.

 

[Flash]

Kimmie Meissner winning the world figure skating championship in Calgary this spring. It's among my favourite clips. It helps that the girl had tonnes of personality and I hope I was able to reflect that in my story.
As for outing myself ... I don't give a rat's behind ...

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/FigureSkating/2006/03/26/1506397-sun.html

 

[ballscribe]

Good stuff. You might have specified on the prom, though. Unlikely that a 16-year-old who has been training seven hours a day on the ice is graduating from high school. Is it her junior prom? Or is it the senior prom, and she's going as someone's date?

 

[Flash]

Aw yeah, I guess I forgot you Amerks have more than one prom. We only get the one senior prom in most locales up here! But good point.

 

[PEteacher]

I did an article about a swimmer at my school who wanted to quit but kept at it only because his dad wanted him to. It was a feature on parent pressure in college sports.

 

[wickedwritah]

Best? Or one I remember most?

There are several stories where I thought that I had home-run material, and those stick out in my mind. Whether I jacked it out or not is in the eye of the beholder.

What we remember most, though, often isn't our best.

 

[ballscribe]

Aw yeah, I guess I forgot you Amerks have more than one prom. We only get the one senior prom in most locales up here! But good point.

Not an Amerk. A Canuck just like you, just a little further east. And here, it's a "grad" ;D

 

[Flash]

Aw yeah, I guess I forgot you Amerks have more than one prom. We only get the one senior prom in most locales up here! But good point.

Not an Amerk. A Canuck just like you, just a little further east. ;D

Damn Upper Canadians. Always gotta be fooling around with stuff. ;D

 

[awriter]

A few years and a few jobs ago, I did a huge takeout on a kid who spent over a month in a coma after suffering a head injury in a middle school football game. Months later, a photog and I documented his last few weeks in the rehab hospital and his return home. His parents gave us great access. It was interesting because we could see his (slow) progress from visit to visit. Little things that he couldn't do one day he was able to do the next. When the injury occurred, it turned into a big story in town, with strangers donating thousands of dollars. I did a pretty big feature on the family when it happened and wrote occasional updates before doing the big story.

 

[Gomer]

Uh, when I graduated from school (in Canada), we called it a grad.

I always thought prom was a U.S. thing.

My best story? Boy... I did a couple doozies on a boxer who was initially told he'd be going to the Olympics, then was told no, then won a legal battle a month before the Games started to reinstate himself.

The uber-newsy story on the legal process was one of the most exciting days of my career, and the feature still makes my wife cry when I read it to her. I really got to know the guy during the process, and just like the football story awriter did, it was being around and doing a bunch of smaller stories that gave me all the little insights to really knock the big ones out of the park.

 

[newspaperhack]

Mine was a story I did on a 1A softball team that got knocked out of the playoffs in the third round. There was only one senior on the team, and she was totally in tears. I was proud of myself that I didn't just think, "fork it. There's no reason to bother this 18-year-old girl who had to stay 10 minutes in the dugout just to compose herself." It ended up being a great story. And, I talked to her mother first, so that bomb was defused.