Tom Hallman Jr., a reporter for The Oregonian, writes about writing in a recent article for the Society of Professional Journalists. Hallman won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his series, "Boy Behind the Mask." He said:
Narrative writing is the melding of emotion, theme and finding the universal meaning in a story, or a character’s world.
On advising a fellow writer on a particular piece, he said:
I told her to go through the story and look for elements that revealed conflict, because conflict and challenges are what hold a reader’s interest. That’s what makes a reader care about “what happens next.” The story had challenges, but they were buried under the weight of a traditional news approach that kept readers at a distance.
-- Therese Bottomly