Part 4 (2/2)

particularly $15 ones. One night, when Ambrosia was

wearing the new possession for the third time, it

developed a long rip. The cloth was defective.

Ambrosia took the dress back. The installment firm

was sorry, but could do nothing, and of course the

firm expected her to keep paying for it.

Ambrosia left the dress, and went back to her old

one. The young man noticed it the next time they

went out together. Shortly afterward, when he should

have called, he didn't. A collector for the

installment house did, though. Meanwhile, Ambrosia

was saving to buy another dress. She was quite

emphatic about the bill from the installment

house--she wouldn't pay it.

Once in awhile she saw the young man, but she didn't

care for more calls until the new dress was

forthcoming.

Tuesday it looked as if everything would come out

all right. She had $9 saved. Wednesday she would

draw her salary--$6. She knew where she could buy

just what she wanted for $12.50. It was much better

looking than the old dress and better material. She

even made an antic.i.p.atory engagement with the young

man.

Wednesday came--Ambrosia went to draw her salary.

The installment house had garnisheed it.

To-day Ambrosia's job is being kept open by the

telephone company, and it is thought some

arrangement may be made by which the installment

house will not garnishee her salary next week.

At the General Hospital she is reported as resting

well. She was taken there in an ambulance yesterday

afternoon after trying to kill herself by inhaling

chloroform.[8]

[8] _Kansas City Star_, January 1, 1917.

=95. Complex Order.=--The complex order, sometimes called the order of increasing complication, is that in which the writer proceeds from the known to the unknown. Generally a story following this method of organization is nothing else than simple exposition. The following a.s.sociated Press story ill.u.s.trates the type:

=AeRIAL TORPEDO BOAT INVENTED= [_By a.s.sociated Press._]

Was.h.i.+ngton, July 22.--An aerial torpedo boat for

attack on s.h.i.+ps in protected harbors is projected,

it was learned to-day, in patents just issued to

Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, now attached to the

navy war college, but formerly aid for operations to

Secretary Daniels.

The plan contemplates equipping a monster aeroplane,

similar to a number now under construction in this

country for the British government, with a Whitehead

torpedo of regulation navy type.

Swooping down at a distance of five sea miles from

the object of attack, the air craft would drop its

deadly pa.s.senger into the water just as it would

have been launched from a destroyer. The impact sets

the torpedo's machinery in motion and it is off at a

speed of more than forty knots an hour toward the

enemy s.h.i.+p.

Admiral Fiske believes the flying torpedo boat would

make it possible to attack a fleet even within a

landlocked harbor. The range of the newest navy

torpedoes is ten thousand yards and even the older

types will be effective at seven thousand yards.

Carried on a huge aeroplane, the 2,000 pound weapon

would be taken over harbor defenses at an alt.i.tude

safe from gunfire. Once over the bay, the machine

would glide down to within ten or twenty feet of

water, the torpedo rudders would be set and it would

be dropped to do its work while the aeroplane arose

and sped away.[9]

[9] _Minneapolis Tribune_, July 22, 1915.

=96. Climactic Order Difficult.=--Of the four organization plans, the hardest by far to develop is the climactic order, which should be avoided by young reporters. This method of arrangement is on the short-story order, and the beginner will find it difficult to group his incidents so that each shall lead up to and explain those following and at the same time add to the reader's interest. Some papers as yet admit only rarely the story developed climactically, but it is growing in popularity and the reporter should know how to handle it.

=97. Important Details.=--With the climactic order of arrangement eliminated, the reporter is practically limited to the simple time order, or a combination of it with one of the other two kinds,--which is the normal type of story. But he must keep in mind one other factor,--to place the most important details first and the least important last.

There are two reasons why this method of arrangement is necessary. In the first place, readers want all the main details first, so that they may learn immediately whether or not they are interested in the story and if it will be worth their while to read the whole article. They are too busy to read everything in the paper; they can choose only those stories that excite their interest. If, therefore, they can learn in the first paragraph what the whole story is about, they will not be delayed and fatigued unnecessarily by reading non-essentials with the hope of finding something worth while.

=98. Unimportant Details.=--The second reason for such an organization is that stories appearing in the early editions have to be cut down to fit into the more valuable and limited s.p.a.ce of the later issues. At the beginning of the day news is relatively scarce, and the front-page, left-hand column of the first edition may carry a story that will be cut in half in the city edition and be relegated to an inside page. More important news has come in as the day has aged. A reporter, therefore, must plan his stories with a view to having the last part, if necessary, cut off,--so that, indeed, if the news editor should prune the story down to only the first paragraph, the reader would still be given the gist of what has happened. Note the following story, how it may be cut off at any paragraph and still present a perfect, though less imposing whole:

=SCHOOLBOY SUES BRIDE, AGED 40=

Villisca, Ia., Dec. 27.--Claude Bates, 17 years old

and formerly of Villisca, has brought suit in Polk

county for the annulment of his marriage to the

widow Patrick, 40 years old and the mother of four

children, two of whom are older than their

stepfather.

Bates is still in school, and became acquainted with

the widow when he went to her home to call on one of

her daughters. According to the pet.i.tion, young

Bates made such a hit with the mother of his best

girl that she herself fell in love with him, and was

soon a rival of her own daughter. The older woman

knew many tricks with which the daughter was

unacquainted, and in the end she managed to ”bag”

the game.

The marriage, which took place in Chicago, was kept

a secret even after the couple returned home, and it

was not until young Bates told the whole story to

his mamma a few days ago that his family had an

inkling of the true state of affairs. Now the suit

has been filed by the boy's mother, because the

young husband himself is too young to go into court

without a guardian.

As one of the causes of the suit, the pet.i.tion cites

that Bates was inveigled into the marriage through

”the wiles, artifices, and protestations of love” on

the part of the widow. Furthermore, the pet.i.tion

charges that the two were married under a.s.sumed

names, that their ages were falsely given, and that

their residences, as given the marriage clerk, were

false.

According to the pet.i.tion, young Bates was attending

school, where he met Mrs. Patrick's daughter and

fell in love with her. He called at the house and

met the mother, who was divorced from her first

husband some ten years ago. There were four of the

Patrick children, their ages being 13, 15, 17, and

20 years. Bates himself was just 15 at that time.

The pet.i.tion sets up that almost immediately after

becoming acquainted with Mrs. Patrick the latter

began her attempts to induce young Bates to marry

her.[10]

[10] _Des Moines Register_, December 27, 1914.

=99. Accuracy of Presentation.=--One very definite caution must be given concerning the organization of the story,--the necessity of presenting facts with judicial impartiality. When the reporter is arranging his material preparatory to writing, casting away a note here and jotting down another there, he can easily warp the whole narrative by an unfair arrangement of details or a prejudiced point of view. Frequently a story may be woefully distorted by the mere suppression of a single fact. A newspaper man has no right willfully to keep back information or to distort news. Unbiased stories, or stories as nearly unbiased as possible, are what newspapers want. And while one may legitimately order one's topics to produce a particular effect of humor, pathos, joy, or sorrow, one should never allow the desire for an effect to distort the presentation of the facts.

IX. THE LEAD[11]

[11] Before reading this chapter, the student should examine the style book in the Appendix, particularly that part dealing with the preparation of copy for the city desk.

=100. Instructions from the City Editor.=--Before beginning the story, the reporter should stop at the city editor's desk, give him in as few words as possible an account of what he has learned, and ask for instructions about handling the story, about any feature or features to play up. The city editor may not offer any advice at all, may simply say to write the story for what it is worth. In such a case, the reporter is at liberty to go ahead as he has planned; and he should have his copy on the city editor's desk within a very few minutes. The city editor, however, may tell him to feature a certain incident and to write it up humorously. If the reporter has observed keenly, he himself will already have chosen the same incident and may still proceed with the writing as he planned on the way back to the office. A careful study of instructions given reporters will quickly convince one, however, that in nine cases out of ten the city editor takes his cue from the reporter himself, that in the reporter's very mood and method of recounting what he has learned, he suggests to the city editor the features and the tone of the story, and is merely given back his own opinion verified. Not always is this the case, however. One reporter on a Southern daily--and a star man, too--used to say that he could never predict what his city editor would want featured. So he used always to come into the office armed with two leads, and sometimes with three.

=101. Two Kinds of Leads.=--The story, technically, is made up of two parts--the lead and the body. The lead is easily the more important. If a reporter can handle successfully this part of the story, he will have little trouble in writing the whole. The lead is the first sentence or the first group of sentences in the story and is of two kinds, the summarizing lead and what may be called the informal lead. The summarizing lead gives in interesting, concise language the gist of the story. The informal lead merely introduces the reader to the story without intimating anything of the outcome, but with a suggestion that something interesting is coming. Of the two types the summarizing lead is by far the more common and may be considered first.

=102. Summarizing Lead.=--The summarizing lead may be a single sentence or a single paragraph, or two or three paragraphs, according to the number and complexity of the details in the story. A brief story usually has a short lead. A long, involved story made up of several parts, each under a separate head, often has a lead consisting of several paragraphs. Sometimes this lead, because of its importance as a summary of all the details in the story, is even boxed and printed in black-face type at the beginning of the story. Then follow the different parts, each division with its own individual lead.

=103. Contents of the Lead.=--What to put into the lead,--or to feature, as reporters express it in newspaper parlance,--one may best determine by asking oneself what in the story is likely to be of greatest interest to one's readers in general. Whatever that feature is, it should be played up in the lead. The first and great commandment in news writing is that the story begin with the most important fact and give all the essential details first. These details are generally summarized in the questions _who_, _what_, _when_, _where_, _why_, and _how_. If the writer sees that his lead answers these questions, he may be positive that, so far as context is concerned, his lead will be good.

=104. Construction of the Lead.=--In constructing the lead, the most important fact or facts should be put at the very first. For this reason, newspaper men avoid beginning a story with _to-day_, _to-morrow_, or _yesterday_, because the time at which an incident has occurred is rarely the most important fact. For the same reason, careful writers avoid starting with _the_, _an_, or _a_, though it often is necessary to begin with these articles because the noun they modify is itself important. The name of the place, too, rarely ever is of enough importance to be put first. An examination of a large number of leads in the best newspapers shows that the features most often played up are the result and the cause or motive. Thus:

=Result=

As a result of too much thanksgiving on Thanksgiving

Day, Prof. Harry Z. Buith, 42, 488 Sixteenth Street,

a prominent Seventh Day Adventist, is dead.

=Cause=

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