Narrative writing

How to apply this skill

1. Read the original question, verified claims, scene ledger, evidence verdict, and strongest counterevidence. Before drafting the complete prose, build the joint story and visual beat plan required by production-quality, using visual-journalism. Name the opening tension, qualified central answer, consequential turns, strongest challenge and bounded ending, and what each image will make understandable. Choose an opening that the evidence earns: a decisive documented moment, a revealing fact, or a clear consequential question. Use plain exposition when it is stronger than a scene.
2. Orient the reader promptly: who or what is involved, where and when, why it matters, and what the reporting establishes. State an available central answer early enough to avoid manipulating curiosity. An opening may raise a real question without concealing a known answer merely to force scrolling.
3. Build movement through action, explanation, consequence, and new evidence. Each section must change the reader’s understanding, rather than accumulate another item in a chronology or product catalogue. Let a documented detail carry weight before explaining it. Compose image-led, prose-led and evidence-led passages together, removing prose that merely repeats a caption or table. Vary paragraph and section length for clarity and pace; transitions may be short. Prefer precise verbs and concrete nouns to superlatives, moral posturing, and atmospheric filler.
4. Explain systems and data when the reader needs them to understand the next development. Translate scale through accurate comparisons. Keep consequential caveats in the prose, near their claims; evidence drawers cannot hide uncertainty.
5. Introduce competing explanations at the point they change the account. Give the strongest challenge its due and explain the assessment. Attribute original reporting and distinguish established fact, allegation, and inference naturally in the sentence.
6. Map each factual passage to supporting source IDs using the product's schema. Present source lists, verification records and detailed methods in Sources & evidence so the story reads continuously. Preserve equal access to supporting and challenging evidence. Keep attribution and any uncertainty that changes meaning in the sentence; chapter-level evidence links must honestly describe their scope.
7. End with the bounded answer, its human or institutional consequence, and the specific unresolved development that matters next. Let a finite story end.

What this produces

Return the draft, headline, deck, evidence map, joint story/visual beat plan and a short editorial note identifying the opening's provenance, narrative movement, visual transitions, strongest challenge, bounded ending, uncertainty placement, and any unresolved verification issue. Match length to the reporting; do not pad a thin record into a feature. Assess the complete rendered flow against the commissioned treatment, not merely whether the prose reads well in isolation.

Sources behind this skill

Craft is informed by Nieman Storyboard; factual boundaries follow Poynter. Reading-flow choices implement Follow.fyi's editorial intent.