How to go from boring to soaring

What can you tell a room full of professional journalists about their profession for seven hours without boring them to tears? That’s the task the Washington Post faced when planning Wednesday’s Super Workshop titled “Crafting the Story.”

The workshop, moderated by Vanessa Williams, former NABJ President and assistant city editor at the Washington Post, focused on how to take a bland story and make it soar. Leading the first discussion was Post Style Assignment Editor Marcia Davis, who stressed the importance of reporting, which is where she said good writing must begin.

“Ninety-nine percent of what we do happens before our fingers ever hit the keyboard,” Davis said. “We have to make sure we get everything so when we sit down we don’t get that overwhelming feeling of ‘Where do I start?’”

Other panelists from the Washington Post included Robin Givhan, style reporter, Ashley Halsey, Maryland editor and Michael Fletcher, national reporter.

Some panelists reminded participants that in order to do great writing they must put their writing into the context of the world. Some attendees expressed concerns about incorporating details into stories while walking the tightropes of deadlines and spicing stories up when the assignment seemed mundane.

For positive reinforcement and to get the attendees’ creative juices flowing, the panel gave out a 10-minute writing exercise and told participants to simply describe their first kiss. Writing examples were passed out to open up the discussion of what does and does not make for good writing.