This is part one of the five-part Sonia Nazario Series for Writers. Read the rest of the series for writing insights from this Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author.
Mandy: You said you look for ten things in a story to know if it’s worth writing. What are those ten things, and why do they matter?
Sonia: I love to write about big social issues. So I pick an issue I’m interested in—hunger, drug addiction—and try to find something new happening within that larger issue.
I do that by reading studies and interviewing experts and academics.
Once I know what I want to write about, I find a narrative thread to tell it through. If it’s hunger among schoolchildren, I find a district or school that can be the narrative thread. I then look for stories that have:
#1 Gut Emotional Appeal
The story has to move me on an emotional level. When I hear about them, they make the hair on my forearm go up. If they move me, they will likely move my readers.
#2 Universal Themes
The story needs a universal theme any reader can identify with. That broadens the audience. Themes like greed, revenge, redemption. In Enrique’s Journey, it’s a boy’s willingness to go through a hostile world to be with his mother. Themes anyone can identify with are what makes the audience want to read on.
#3 Compelling Characters
Great characters are characters who change and grow over time. In Enrique’s Journey, you have gangsters who ride on top of trains. They wear rosaries to seem like good people, to get closer to migrants who ride on top of the trains.
The gangsters spend time with the migrants, so they can figure out who is carrying money and where they hide it. But once the train starts, those same gangsters rob and rape migrants. They throw pregnant women down to the churning wheels below.
#4 A Central Question
I look for a central question that drives the story. The central question provides the engine to the story, because it’s a question the reader wants answered.
In Enrique’s Journey, the question is: will Enrique make it to his mother’s arms? This can be powerful even if we know the answer. In Ann Frank’s diary, we know she dies in the end, but we are still hoping the Americans will arrive in time, liberate Holland, and save her.
#5 Dynamic Scenes
A good story can be told in compelling scenes, ones I can take the reader into so they feel they are there as they are happening.
#6 Classic Story Structure
The story needs a beginning, middle, and end. Hopefully, the end is circular in some way.
#7 Inherent Conflict
People are trying to kill Enrique during most of his journey.
#8 Movement
A journey, whether spiritual or emotional. The best stories have journeys as a central element.
#9 A Different World
A story that takes you inside worlds you wouldn’t otherwise see. A crack house. The top of a freight train.
#10 A Big Issue with a Narrative Thread
A big issue that will have inherent appeal to a broad audience and a compelling narrative thread to tell whatever is happening that is new within that big issue in a compelling way.
About Sonia Nazario
Her Los Angeles Times article series about a Honduras boy who travelled 1600 miles to find his mother in the States won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing and later became the book, Enrique’s Journey.
Find out more about her work at Enrique’s Journey.
Next in the series: Write Like Sonia Nazario: This 5-Step Writing Process Gets Her through New Project Paralysis Every Time
Great information. Normally I tell peoples stories through video but I am writing my first book right now. You’re information is helpful. Thank you.
Glad to hear it, Pamela. Good luck with your first book! I’m rooting for you.
Hi Mandy
Already a subscriber. Great info, excellent blog. As always right on. I truly appreciate your talent and insight. I have written my first book, not published, as of yet still doing editions. I always get so anxious thinking that my ideas in my book are so mainstreamed to others. I get fearsome thinking that someone will beat me to the punch. Right now I have it at four friends to read. Haven’t heard a thing back in a month. Of course my mom , who is in her 80’s says she loves it, but when recently ? about it couldn’t remember it. Lol. Any suggestions for. guy racked with anxiety would be extremely helpful. Thanks Mandy in advance.
Sincerely
Greg Zach
Glad to have you here 🙂
What it sounds like to me is you need a critique group of other writers you trust who agree to read each other’s pages by a certain deadline and provide feedback. Feedback from other writers is invaluable. Aim for a mixed group who have reading tastes that run similar to what you want to write, and look for people who are better at writing than you are (so you can learn from them) and one or two who can learn from you (so you can deepen your skill set through teaching it).
A critique group can help you get timely feedback + help you figure out if what you’re doing is fresh enough in the right ways to connect with the audience you want to connect with.
You’re right, mom’s opinion doesn’t count 😉 And in the end, always go with your gut.
Good luck, Greg Zach!