All these award-winning long-form pieces share a structure in the most abstract form, that they are examining characters on a deeply personal and even introspective level. Meanwhile, the narrative of the character in focus becomes a telescope that allows the reader to comprehend the implications of a specific story to a broader set of phenomena, connections, and realizations.

 

This is what I’ve observed in nearly all of the long-form, character-focused pieces that have been assigned to us this semester, but I think in the context of the stories that we are writing it is interesting to see how diverse the characters are, and how different journalists choose to handle the writing of that.

 

Specifically, I found myself intrigued by the focus on the character of the billionaire, and a non-traditional one at that. From the perspectives of us students taking the class, the characters that we’ve been working with carry story of a migrant and someone who quite easily elicits empathy: their arduous journey, a sense of purpose that fuels their migration. Eli Saslow’s piece delves into how the billionaire as a character is unsympathetic, constantly the target of democratic politicians’ rhetoric but yet also someone whose everyday habits center around making and ultimately giving money to charitable causes. The multidimensional and at times contradictory nature of this person provided a look into how a billionaire from humble beginnings really thinks. To me, this was a person who was utterly devout to the capitalist system and perhaps blindsided to some extent by that too.

 

Katie Engelhart’s piece focusing on a mother with dementia and how her closest circle must react was an interesting philosophical look into how one grapples with the ethics of patient treatment and medical agency. This piece felt more analytical and academic to me, pulling in a variety of voices and sources from different frameworks of thought to assess the specific situation of Diane. I also found the legal lens to be an interesting one, which was a shocking bubbling undercurrent of the piece where the dysfunction of guardianship/conservatorships were exposed in a raw light.

 

By looking through all of these pieces, there’s also a refreshing diversity in the styles and approaches to storytelling. I think certain techniques were very effective, specifically in how literary some interpretations verged on. I enjoyed the style of writing in Jennifer Senior’s piece on Bobby Mcilvaine, especially in the long-form lede that seemed to unpackage the mystery of what the story was behind Bobby and that form truly lent to the content of the story, similarly to the perspectives of the people around him trying to grapple with the belongings and scraps that remained after his death. This was intriguing from a reader’s experience, and is helping me think more broadly and creatively about what forms I may choose to use in my final piece.