The pain is etched on the faces of those whose loved ones were killed. You see where most of them is from: They're poor, they're black or Hispanic. They live in the ghetto, and maybe they should be used to violence. They're not. Their pain is so real you could reach out and grab it. their eyes haunt you. (96, Myers, ABNW)
Does that not look like the script for either The Practice, or someother tv drama about courts. Probably something on CBS-right? Now I know it is a feature piece, but still didn't seem a little eccentric. When I think crime stories, i think hard, gritty and to the point. Hell this article wasn't even soft pulp fiction. I worked in a jail-Shuman, yeah so it's for kids, but kids who won't think twice to shot you in "The Real World" as the kids like to say. Her story, Linnet Myers, didn't come off to me as something real, or excruating in agony/fear. The pain, I'm still lokking for it. Maybve I have been scorned from experience, but I wasn't all that taken with the feature. My bad.
Bonus Bonus time:
Xenia, Ohio. Xenia, Ohio. A couple of years ago, a tornado hit this place. It killed the people left and right. Houses were split open, and you could see necklaces hanging from branches of trees. Dogs died. Cats died. I saw a girl fly through the sky... and I looked up her skirt.
Name the movie-Extra Extra Credit if you can name the character.
Comments (5)
Yes, it's very script-like. Like I mentioned, it's a great piece of writing but...a great piece of newswriting? I just wasn't seeing it. I'm a creative writer so prose flows naturally, which is what this piece reminded me a lot of. I'm always being told, in my newstories, to cut things down, condense them, etc. Apparently no one told Myers...
Posted by Nessa | November 6, 2007 10:55 PM
Posted on November 6, 2007 22:55
I agree that the story was not hard, but I liked aspects of it for that reason. It was more personal, a first hand account. I think a lot of people see the T.V. versions and are surprised that it may not be that way in REALITY. Not that I have any idea, but just a hunch. Correct me if I am wrong!
Posted by Bethany Merryman | November 6, 2007 11:01 PM
Posted on November 6, 2007 23:01
Mitch, that quote is too obscure for me... I did use Google to find it -- Gummo (1997), but that's cheating.
Nessa, you're right, this is a big switch from the kind of bare-bones news story we've been emphasizing so far, but journalism includes narrative reporting, too, so it overlaps with biography, which is a form of literature. Many 20th century novelists began as news reporters, and the psychological realism and the naturalistic portrayal of language and setting that's so important to modernist fiction has its roots in the journalist's attempt to capture a scene and capture a character objectively.
Posted by Dennis G. Jerz | November 7, 2007 10:34 AM
Posted on November 7, 2007 10:34
I agree that Meyers feature piece wasn't exactly hard-hitting news, but as I said in my blogg, I think anyone who's ever worked in the court/justice system has been or will be jaded, and you my friend, are jadaed.
Posted by Shannon Moskal | November 7, 2007 2:26 PM
Posted on November 7, 2007 14:26
congratulations on the movie, it was a tough one to figure out on it's own-so the use of Google is not frowned upon here.
But I agree with the ideas of the class about the article and the freedom of the feature piece to allow the writer the chance to be a little creative in the writing. I think we forget the talents of good news writing when we only look at the day to day paper. It is on the long Sundays when you can read a article as well crafted as the Myers article to really appreciate their craft.
Posted by Mitchell Steele | November 8, 2007 12:50 AM
Posted on November 8, 2007 00:50