(Flickr photo courtesy of user h.koppdelaney.)
Since basically the dawn of storytelling, we’ve known the power of the quest narrative, a.k.a. the hero’s journey. Our most popular and enduring stories have been quests; e.g. the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
We’ve long applied the quest form to journalism, with delightful results. These types of stories feature the journalist as hero, letting the audience in on their process as they pursue the answer to a pressing question. There’s the legendary “Giant Pool of Money” episode of This American Life, where Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg chase the epic question, “What led to the financial crisis?” There’s Atul Gawande’s bombshell New Yorker feature from last year on why health care costs so much more in McAllen, Tx., than it does down the road in El Paso. There’s James Fallows’ prescient National Magazine Award-winning cover story from the 11/02 Atlantic Monthly, pursuing an answer to the question, “What happens after we invade Iraq?”
Besides being quest narratives, of course, part of what all these stories have in common is that they’re long-form narrative journalism. So you might be wondering, “How does this apply to blogging – a format that’s all about short nuggets?”
The trick is that a great blog, seen in its entirety, is often just an incredibly lengthy serial narrative. Several of the best bloggers – especially news bloggers – engage you in the pursuit of an arresting question, using every post to stoke your hunger for what happens next.
At the height of the health care reform debate, I found myself checking Ezra Klein’s blog at the Washington Post site every chance I got, because he clearly understood the art of the quest. Well before the health care reform legislative battle really heated up in 2009, he began mapping out the landscape with a health care reform for beginners series to orient his readers. (Sort of like how maps of Middle Earth were inlaid in the beginnings of the Lord of the Rings books.)
Early on, he introduced us to several of the main recurring characters in the health care reform saga – key legislators, well-regarded experts, union leaders, industry lobbyists, and others. His solid knowledge of the policy and politics of reform allowed him to do some terrific foreshadowing; sure enough, his repeated admonitions to read that Max Baucus profile came in handy when Baucus became a pivotal figure in the debate. Along the way, he dropped in the little mini-mysteries – e.g. “Will unions kill health care reform?” – that add dimension to every good quest (and – crucially – followed them to their resolution).
And the best part of all – he let you in on the quest. You felt, reading Klein’s blog, that you were in the thick of the action, talking with legislators and wonks, unraveling in real time the gripping (not kidding!) story of whether health-care reformers would finally win a key battle in their century-long war to reform the US system. It was a fantastic serial narrative, told splendidly, in post after post after post. All told, Klein’s collected writings on health care would be the raw material for a massive book – many hundreds of thousands of words.
If you can make your beat into a fascinating epic quest, you win.