Inserting a quote into a news story is really an art-form. The quote can't be too long, however you want to capture the spark of what the person was saying. When quotes get too clunky, the really awesome parts of what that person said get lost. That's why picking out exactly what a person has said that struck you the most, no more and no less, is so important. If you add too much of the periphery around that moment into the quote, then you take away from the impact. This has been a bit hard for me just because I am inspired by a lot of what people say. However, that one, cut-down nugget of a quote of pure journalistic goodness is what makes readers interested in what you are writing.
The intriguing thing is that earlier in the semester, when we had specific word counts that we couldn't go over, I feel that I was more selective with my quotes and only picked the exact parts that were striking to me, which made them more powerful. Now that I don't have a world limit, I've found that my quotes tend to be a bit too long even in the profile piece I did where the nature of feature writing allows for longer quotes. I just need to continue to try to cull the quotes I pick out and act as if I am still under those word count limits in order to make my articles the most interesting and easy to read as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment