Paragraphs 5 and 6.—Further human-interest details.
Paragraphs 7 and 8.—Note the short sentences. The story moves swiftly from fact to fact. The writer is telling what happened, without commenting on it.
Paragraph 9.—Human-interest feature deemed worthy of a prominent place in the story.
Paragraph 10.—Effective description of the quick spread of the fire by means of incident. At this point the “fine writer” might have lugged in his artillery of adjectives. Note the opposite method—the right news method—of telling specific details.
Paragraph 11.—Continuation of the same method. “The elevator made one trip, but took down no passengers and never came back,” is finely descriptive.
Paragraphs 12 and 13.—Swift, vivid description by specific details. The precision with which the story is told, indicating accurate observation, is noteworthy, as in “twenty-five feet from the street,” “sixty feet below,” “fifteen of them on the stone slabs.” The exact figures are obviously far more effective than a vague expression such as “a number of.”
Paragraph 14.—Detailed summary. Note that every sentence adds something to the story. There is no padding.
Paragraph 15.—The story continues a column from this point, fact piled on fact in the order of importance. A story written in this manner has been likened to a pyramid. It may be cut from the bottom up at almost any point and yet stand complete.)
II. Another kind of fire story, from the New York World, in which the news value is not so obvious as in the foregoing. Here the writer has seized upon the human-interest feature and developed his story accordingly. The fire in itself was of no importance:
Fire visited last night the lodging house conducted by Mrs. Hannah Tracy, 102 years old, and Mrs. Sarah Wrinn, ninety-five years old, at No. 803 Washington street, and now the two aged landladies, who never demanded board money in advance, are in Bellevue and their boarders are minus their care.
Children playing in front of the old-fashioned brick house near the Gansevoort Market saw smoke coming from the basement, where the two women had their living quarters. Little Arthur Weldon of No. 826 Washington street ran to a fire box and gleefully sent in a call. Margaret Havlick and Elizabeth Irving, also of No. 826, skipped across to the store of Joseph White with the news.
White ran to No. 803, broke in the basement door and found that a cat that looked to be at least one hundred years old had upset an oil lamp on a table and that the table cover was burning. He threw the cover to the floor and stamped out the flames. Then he sprang into a rear room and found Mrs. Tracy in bed, feebly calling for help, while Mrs. Wrinn lay on the floor. He carried them out, one at a time.
Though they had not inhaled much smoke their advanced ages led an ambulance surgeon from St. Vincent’s Hospital to take them to Bellevue. Neighbors said the women were sisters. Mrs. Tracy’s husband kept a dry goods store in Christopher street fifty years ago and when he died left her a little money.
Mrs. Tracy is known in the neighborhood as “Mother” Tracy. Children have made it a point to follow her in the street, for she often distributed cents from her little old-fashioned reticule.