硬新闻故事通常是事实的集合。有些文字写得比其他文字好，但它们都是为了实现传达信息的简单目的而存在的。

故事片也传达了事实，但也讲述了人们的生活故事。要做到这一点，他们必须结合新闻故事中经常找不到的写作方面，这些方面往往与小说写作有关。

伟大的莱德

一个特写可以设置一个场景，描述一个地方或讲述一个故事。无论采用何种方法，lede都必须抓住读者的注意力，并将他们吸引到故事中。

以下是《纽约时报》一篇关于前纽约州州长艾略特·斯皮策（Eliot Spitzer）和他在华盛顿一家豪华酒店与一名妓女会面的报道：

It was after 9 on the night before Valentine’s Day when she finally arrived, a young brunette named Kristen. She was 5-foot-5, 105 pounds. Pretty and petite. This was at the Mayflower, one of Washington’s choicer hotels. Her client for the evening, a return customer, had booked Room 871. The money he had promised to pay would cover all expenses: the room, the minibar, room service should they order it, the train ticket that had brought her from New York and, naturally, her time. A 47-page affidavit from an F.B.I. agent investigating a prostitution ring described the man at the hotel as “Client 9” and included considerable detail about him, the prostitute and his payment methods. But a law enforcement official and another person briefed on the case have identified Client 9 as Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York.

请注意，5英尺5英寸的深棕色头发、房间号码、迷你吧等细节如何营造出对故事其余部分的期待感。你不得不读更多。

描述

描述为故事设定了场景，并将故事中的人物和地点栩栩如生。一个好的描述会促使读者在他们的脑海中创造出精神形象。任何时候你做到了这一点，你就是在让读者参与你的故事。

莱恩·德雷戈里（Lane DeGregory）在《圣彼得堡时报》（St.Petersburg Times）的一篇文章中描述了一个被忽视的小女孩，她被发现在蟑螂出没的房间里：

She lay on a torn, moldy mattress on the floor. She was curled on her side, long legs tucked into her emaciated chest. Her ribs and collarbone jutted out; one skinny arm was slung over her face; her black hair was matted, crawling with lice. Insect bites, rashes, and sores pocked her skin. Though she looked old enough to be in school, she was naked—except for a swollen diaper.

注意细节：凌乱的头发，布满疮的皮肤，发霉的床垫。这个描述既令人心碎又令人厌恶，但要表达这个女孩所忍受的可怕境遇是必要的。

引用

虽然好的引语对新闻报道至关重要，但对特写来说却是必不可少的。理想情况下，专题报道应该只包括最丰富多彩和最有趣的引语。其他一切都应该解释一下。

看看《纽约时报》1995年4月俄克拉荷马州联邦大厦爆炸事件中的一个例子。在故事中，记者里克·布拉格描述了废墟以及消防员和救援人员对现场的反应：

People could not stop looking at it, particularly the second floor, where a child care center had been. "A whole floor," said Randy Woods, a firefighter with Engine No. 7. "A whole floor of innocents. Grown-ups, you know, they deserve a lot of the stuff they get. But why the children? What did the children ever do to anybody."

轶事

奇闻轶事只不过是很短的故事。但在功能中，它们可以非常有效地说明关键点，或者将人物和事件带入生活，并且它们通常用于构建功能LED。

这里有一个很好的例子，来自《洛杉矶时报》一篇关于扑灭野火的费用飞涨的报道：

On the morning of July 4, 2007, ranch hands were fixing a water pipe on private land in a narrow canyon off the road to Zaca Lake, about 15 miles north of Solvang. The temperature was headed toward 100 degrees. Rainfall the previous winter had been among the lowest on record in Southern California. Sparks from a metal grinder jumped into some dry grass. Soon flames were rushing through the brush toward Zaca Ridge. By the next day, nearly 1,000 firefighters were trying to box the fire into a small area. But late that afternoon, the Zaca made a run, moving east into Los Padres National Forest. By July 7, Forest Service officials realized they were facing a potential monster.

请注意，作家贝蒂娜·博克索尔（Bettina Boxall）和朱莉·卡特（Julie Cart）如何快速有效地总结了火灾的起源，这场火灾在他们的故事中起着核心作用。

背景资料

背景信息听起来像是你在新闻报道中看到的东西，但在特写中同样重要。如果你没有可靠的信息来支持你的功能试图表达的观点，那么世界上所有的文字描述和丰富多彩的引用都是不够的。

下面是一个很好的例子，来自《洛杉矶时报》关于上述野火的报道：

Wildfire costs are busting the Forest Service budget. A decade ago, the agency spent $307 million on fire suppression. Last year, it spent $1.37 billion. Fire is chewing through so much Forest Service money that Congress is considering a separate federal account to cover the cost of catastrophic blazes. In California, state wildfire spending has shot up 150% in the last decade, to more than $1 billion a year.

请注意作者如何整理他们的事实，以清楚明确地表明他们的观点：扑灭野火的成本正在急剧上升。