When you’re taking notes on a work of narrative journalism, naturally many of the skills of so-called “close reading” do come into play. That is, you can normally start out by looking for the kinds of things you do if you’re reading a more obviously “literary” work (a sonnet, a play, an intensely descriptive passage in a novel). So, for instance, you can look closely at elements such as:
- Titles/ or characters’ names as metaphorical clues or “keynote” motifs
- Setting (landscape; spatial organization; “scenes” and stages that shape character and action)
- imagery/ motif (are there implied figurative comparisons)
- diction (formal or informal; highly metaphorical or not) and tone (e.g. sentimental or subdued? or mysterious? or ironic—the range is wide)
- structural clues: parallelism/ foreshadowing/ ironic contrasts
- Allusions to previous literary texts (is your writer imitating other writers’ styles, or particular writers of fiction like Dickens, or Orwell, or Hemingway, or Jane Austen?)
However, one thing that’s also often true is that long-form journalistic writing can tend to put an emphasis on “spare” or non-figurative writing: to downplay flowery diction or metaphor, and to aim for effects closer to “realistic” representation Note Edit Note Remove Note that don’t allow style to “distract” from the illusion of witnessing and being fact-based. Therefore, it’s often important to consider the especially important ways that structural and “performative” (play-like, as in “drama”) elements of narrative work in narrative journalism, particularly as they bear upon the authority of the journalist and, in turn, “whose story” the journalist is claiming to represent. So, for instance, elements that come more to the fore might be:
- Point of view. First person, which often places the writer at the scene? works to testify or witness? Or forms of third person–omniscient (which means the journalist seems to “see all”?) or free-indirect discourse, which “folds” narrative voice into the thoughts and positions of subjects?
- Persona. Is the journalist projecting a “familiar” or warm personality, or does that persona seem detached, distant, removed from the scene? (This term is defined in the Glossary.) Is the tone of the narrator’s voice serious, defeated, comic, ironic, or what?—well, that can tell you much about the orientation to the topic. How much external authority–scholarship, rival arguments, and so on–is consulted by your journalist, and how much is he or she relying on personal experience or research?
- Setting can be more like Context. Why did the journalist pick the “time and place” he or she did? What does the setting “represent” or stand for, in a larger sense?–what social situation or problem? What “Big Picture” (in History, in social theory, in contemporary culture or politics?)
- Narrative time. Does the story proceed in a linear fashion, or does the time frame “circle back,” jump around, hint at the future? how long ago were the events taking place? how deep into History does your journalist go?
- Narrative Structure.If you divided the text into “acts” of a play, where would you divide them? Where is the “crisis” or the high point of the conflict? What elements of the story does the story-arc or structure cause us to think more about?
- Character and Focalization. How many characters did the journalist choose to include, and who gets the most focus and depth–and why? And again, what do the various characters “represent”?–what social forces or situations?