Being part of the editing team has helped me to see what are some really important things to keep an eye on when reading articles. I noticed that many people, including me, had a real focus on the theme each story had this time. Especially for profile stories like these, I feel like it’s essential for the writer to decide on an overarching theme for the piece that drives it. If this isn’t strong, it’s easy for the writer to get off track and include some unnecessary information in that doesn’t quite connect with the rest of the story. This theme needs to be strong right from the lead in order to make the story as powerful as it can be.
Organization was also something many editors this round focused on. This can differ between different stories so it’s important as an editor to look at the story as a whole and see how changing organization can affect the impact and clarity of the story. Someone suggested that a writer should maybe have some current information about what the person is today in the very beginning. That way the reader can more easily be pulled in. This format seems to make sense for these profiles and then what follows is slowly revealing more background information.
