When you put your fingers on your computer keyboard and start typing, your mind does something that will affect the quality of the story you are working on? 

Why is it that you can talk with the executive producer and the show producer and tell them about your story, emphasizing all the great sound you have and the unusual twist when you conducted a particular interview and the great video you have, but when you sit down to “write” the piece your mind freezes?

When you start writing, your mind switches from a conversation mode to a reading mode.  Your first sentence of the package is right there on your computer screen.  You “read” it and not “say” it.  You are writing for the eye and not the ear. It’s a trap. 

When we talk, we speak in short phrases and hardly ever in complete sentences.  We naturally “tease” our listeners when we begin a story or introduce a new twist in an ongoing story. 

But, when we start writing for the “eye”, we stumble back into using long, complex sentences to try to explain complex ideas.  It is hard to record those sentences.  They are not pleasant for the ear.  They will kill your stories.

Don’t let the keyboard do this to you!

One of the best bits of advice I received from a boss was something he yelled to me across the room.  I was sitting at my desk with a deadline approaching and I was frozen with my fingers on the keyboard.  WTHR News Director Bill Dean shouted, “Becker get going or you are going to miss your deadline!”

I yelled back that I was struggling with lots of information.  It was a complicated story about politics and money.    He said, “Don’t confuse me with the facts, just tell me the story!”

I put down my notebook.  Took my fingers off the keyboard and he said, “what’s this story about”?   So, I told him.  It was brilliant.  He said, “now write that down and get in the audio booth”.    It needed some polishing, but a complicated story about money and politics was really about the people fighting about it and the neighborhood that would be affected depending on who won.  Sure, I included the important facts, but it was a “story” and not a “report”.

Don’t let your fingers on that keyboard prevent you from “telling” a good story.  Say it out loud if you must, but “say” it don’t write it.  Have a conversation with your viewers.  Tell them a good story, a true story, and an accurate story.  But don’t confuse them with the “facts.”