Written News Story

LyLena is “On the Bridge” to Success

LyLena Estabine Olathe Northwest sophomore, just published her third book, On the Bridge. Her book is a dystopian novel that features a boy struggling through the problems in our society today such as bigotry and prejudice. With support from her family, Lylena self-published her book on July 1st 2017. On the Bridge can be bought and read online at Barnes and Noble and Amazon, but if you want a signed copy you can purchase them directly from LyLena.

According to LyLena, On the Bridge took about a year to write and publish. She used easy to access programs such as Google Docs and Microsoft Word to write the book and Canva to design the cover. LyLena wants other young authors to know that reading books, plays or poetry can really help a lot to “…find your voice and a particular style that stands out to you.”

When her book came out, she had book signings where people could come buy a signed copy of her book and talk to her about it. Her book seems to have been a hit with everyone who has read it, including her freshman english teacher, Ms. Toburen. According to Ms.Toburen she enjoyed the book and that she thought LyLena “...did a really good job, much better than I could have done at 15 for sure.”

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Process

When writing a news story you start with the five W's and then proceed with the most important information and concluding with the least important information. This is called the inverted pyramid style of news writing. Along the way we must remember to use quotes and to make sure that we are not writing in a fictional style. (Ex. we ALWAYS say, "...she/he SAID") As a class we looked at different news websites and analyzed written news stories to get an idea of what we were supposed to write. We also looked at our own Raven Daily and Raven Minute to see what other ONW students have made for written news stories before writing our own. I started with the five W's in the first paragraph. For the second paragraph I talked about how LyLena wrote her book and what advice she has for other authors our age. In the final paragraph I talked about the reaction of other students and teachers when her book came out.

My Thoughts

I liked being challenged to write in a less fictional style because I typically use very descriptive and shiny words when I write and this was very different for me. I still need to work on organizing my information from most important to least important and making sure my words are engaging the reader. I also need to remember to say "According to _____" and "______ said".

What I Would Change

If I were to do this project again I would make sure that I have enough quotes and that they are embedded correctly. I would also want to see what other opportunities there are to write news stories on and how much information there is for me to work with.