From the Sidelines

I’ve had some people ask from time to time to explain the process behind writing a feature article – how it’s formed, when the photos are shot, etc., and I thought my latest story was pretty typical of how my feature stories work. Feature stories are articles where you typically have a longer time period in which to report, gather information and conduct interviews – unlike a typical game story or other breaking news article. They give writers a chance to really dive in to their subjects, which is why they’re often times the best stories to read.

For tomorrow’s issue of the Bellevue Reporter, I wrote about Interlake graduate and promising race car driver Tyler Allen. Allen, who recently graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering, got into racing as a sophomore in college – a late start – but he’s making big strides so far. His goal is to race in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup Series and he recently found out he has a huge opportunity, as he was selected to compete in Richard Petty’s Driver Search II, a competition that allows the one winner the chance to compete to qualify in an ARCA Series event in October.

To win would mean a big break in Allen’s career, but even going allows him to network with Petty, a racing legend, as well as other former NASCAR drivers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’d received a few press releases about Allen and his racing down at the South Sound Speedway in Rochester, Wash., and had begun to get curious. I thought this could be a good story – because how many race car drivers are living in Bellevue, where it’s not the biggest sport around? My thought was not many. When I found out Tyler was selected for Driver Search II, I thought this story had some potential.

So I gave his father, Terry Allen, a call and we decided to meet up at the Allen’s house in Bellevue. I ventured out and was welcomed into their garage where they work on the car. And when I say garage, I mean typical, everyday, attached-to-the-house garage. Except theirs has a giant stock car in it that, when turned on, rattles you to your very bones. Which was very, very cool.

Tyler and I spent about 10 minutes talking before Chad Coleman, our very talented photographer, showed up for the photo shoot. Tyler bounced in to the house to change into his racing suit and spent the next 35-40 minutes shooting photos with Chad. I used this opportunity to speak with Terry about his son and his accomplishments, hopes and dreams before I was called by Chad to do what I’ve done so often – serve as a human light stand.

I held up lights for Chad for the next 10 minutes or so and we finished up. I could tell by the amount of shooting Chad was doing, combined with the backdrop of the car and Tyler’s personality that this was going to be a good shoot. Subjects like Tyler – unguarded, outgoing and upbeat – make our jobs much easier. When a subject is like that, they open up so much more. In Chad’s case, it’s getting them to ease up and trust that he’s going to be taking some pretty cool photos and won’t make them “look bad.” In my case, it helps me be able to ask all sorts of questions and opens up new directions you can go in when someone is so willing to be completely open with you.

Once Chad finished up (and graciously accepted a bottled water from Terry Allen after his hard work) he packed up and I resumed my chat with Tyler. We talked for nearly 50 more minutes and my questions ranged from all over. The other great thing about Tyler was how passionate he was. He answered everything I asked him in a tone that made me tell how much he cared about racing.

Once we wrapped up the interview, Terry instructed Tyler to fire up the car so I could hear what it sounds like. Let’s just say it’s a good thing the Allen’s neighbors are all family.

The next part of the writing process is probably my least favorite – transcription. I take plenty of notes when I am interviewing someone and I also record everything. With feature stories like Tyler’s, I always try to make the interview more of a conversation and less like an interview, if that makes sense – I’d rather us talking back and forth freely instead of him speaking with my head buried taking notes. As a result, I typically have to refer back to my recorder in times like this. And with Tyler – who had so many interesting things to say – that meant typing out a transcription of our conversation.

The next step in the process is the most obvious – writing the dang thing. The problem with great stories often is over-information. You simply have so much great stuff to share, you have to determine what is most interesting.

With large feature stories like this, where I have plenty of time to work on the story, the process is typically the same. When I am interviewing someone, I would say 99 percent of the time there is a moment where I think “there’s my lede” (lede, in journalist lingo, is the lead paragraph(s) of a story that draw the reader in) and write it down. Sometimes it’s just something you observe, like when I noticed the Allen’s trailer and its license plate: I’m Not Speeding, I’m Qualifying. I wrote that down, thinking that was a great place to start. But later, once I heard Tyler’s story about graduation at the UW, I knew that’s where I would begin my story.

From there, things just seem to flow into place. For this story it did anyway. Sometimes, you just get stuck, have to save and close the story and just walk away for a little bit before coming back to it. In this case, I hunkered down and before I knew it, had my story before me. The only trouble for me, in this case, was having so much information and fun stories, and having to cut down the story to a reasonable length.

With stories of this length, I like to bounce around ideas. In this case I went with Issaquah/Sammamish sports reporter Kevin Endejan, a colleague and someone I trust to take a look at my stuff and offer honest suggestions. Once I had the story in a place where I thought it looked pretty polished, I went to my toughest critic: my wife. Since I’m not a huge racing fan or overly knowledgeable in the sport, I asked her to take a look at it and see if I explained things clearly enough for anyone to understand. Apparently I passed the test.

From that point, it moves on to design. Since this was a large story, I needed a large space to drop it into in the newspaper. Last week, we had a bit smaller of a section so I decided to hold it a week and hope for more room. This week I had plenty of space for the story and two photos, so we ran it. You’ll be able to see it in the paper tomorrow.

So that’s the process from start to finish for anyone who was curious. Every reporter does things a little bit different, but that’s the way I tackle feature assignments.

Also, take a look at these pictures by Chad Coleman. We couldn’t fit them all in the paper, so here’s a look at his best shots