Denver Post feature writer Doug Brown admits it’s a tough job when you’re assigned to profile someone who is, by nature, boring. It takes more work and more interviews with other people – but it can be done. It’s easier to find someone who is talkative and interesting and OK with you following him around while he plays squash, picks up his kids from school, whatever. Brown says it’s essential be in the person’s environment – but not just a staid workplace.
“Do something with them other than sit in an office,” Brown says.
Brown says he fills note pads with seemingly random and meaningless details when he’s interviewing people for profiles. When his subject goes off on a tangent, Brown plays a common reporter trick: He makes it appear as if he’s totally engaged but he’s really writing down the color of the spot on the guy’s tie. You can’t gather too many details or too much information when writing a profile. As you’re sitting down to write, you’ll have your choice of juicy narrative details that can make your story.
“It’s the little tiny things that make all the difference,” Brown says.
Brown recalls reading a piece by Maureen Dowd on Rush Limbaugh. She wrote about having lunch with him and included a telling detail – Limbaugh blew his nose on the restaurant napkin mid-meal.
Brown highlights the importance of asking open-ended questions as a way to get your subject to expound upon something. Sometimes, he’ll ask more reluctant or quiet sources to just “tell me what you know about this.” Before long, the subject is talking and talking – and forgetting you’re a reporter gobbling up every word.
Brown talks about his “Start to Finish” series in the Post. He’s written about grassfed beef beginning with a rambunctious tan steer and ending with choice beef cuts on a local grill, and goat cheese that began with some goats tended by prisoners in Canon City. When he wrote about the life of a steer on a Wyoming ranch run by Native American cowboys, he got the most comments he’s ever gotten from readers. And he had the most access a reporter has probably ever had to a meat processing plant. The description was a little gory – but that’s life if you eat meat.
For the steer story, he estimates he spent about 10 days total reporting and writing it. Of course, he had other editorial tasks to do for the Post during that time.
For writers, the most important thing is getting the good clips, Brown says. The name of the publication doesn’t matter nearly as much as the quality of the single story. So, he urges new writers to write good stories and use them to land even better assignments. Of course, it helps being a creative thinker. For years, it puzzled Brown when he’d encounter male friends and confusion erupted about whether a hug, a back pat or handshake was in order. Once, he collided with a buddy when he went for the hug and the friend went for the shake. So, he wrote a story about it.
