storytelling - Writing Boots

I try to avoid actually providing anything useful on this blog, lest people think they can get something for nothing. But sometimes I just can't help it.

On Monday, the big story was the Kagan nomination for Supreme Court. The New York Times ran stories, but they also ran a six-shot photo-album.

If you just clicked through the photos—and how could you not want to see this curious-looking woman from a few angles? Christ, she looks like Otto Pilot, from the movie Airplane!—you learned about as much about Kagan as anyone knows, just from the photo captions.

Check it out:

1. Elena Kagan, the solicitor general, will be nominated by President Obama to be the next Supreme Court justice, Democrats said.

2. Her nomination would fill the vacancy left by Justice John Paul Stevens's retirement. Ms. Kagan has never been a judge.

3. Ms. Kagan is known for her easy banter with the justices. She spoke with former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at a conference in 2009.

4. Ms. Kagan's appointment will require Senate approval, and both sides of the aisle are gearing up for potentially contentious hearings.

5. Born in Manhattan, Ms. Kagan, here in a 1977 yearbook, received degrees from Princeton and Oxford before attending Harvard Law.

6. Ms. Kagan, with former Harvard Law School students, was the school's first female dean, from 2003 to 2009.

Pretty slick, NYT. Pretty damned slick. And a lesson to us all.

In my reading for Vital Speeches of the Day, I came across a good speech by Peter Steinfels, the religion columnist for The New York Times. He explains a difficulty of writing on religion: "Religious leaders are uncomfortable about acknowledging conflict among their faithful or within their teachings."

For serious media, no less than for radio or TV trash talkers, the first bridge to be built is that to readers and viewers. Like it or not, a major element of that bridge is going to be conflict. It is a truism that readers and viewers are not interested in learning that New York’s commuters made it to work again this morning—unless, that is, the commuters were struggling against a snowstorm or escaping a fire or trapped in a crime scene.

Whether we do reporting, punditry, analysis, or criticism, those of us in the media traffic in stories. And a major element of a good story, as you will learn in Creative Writing 101, is conflict. We focus on conflict not only because readers or audience crave it but also because they deserve it. The conflicts that they face or wish to avoid are important to them, precisely what they want to know.

I'm going to use that passage, especially the part I've bolded, with corporate clients who want great stories, but without the conflict.

Sorry, darlings. There are no such things.

How to tell stories today

When it comes to companies and storytelling, the conflict is the rub