1. Writing a profile

2.  Headline – ▪ This is the title of your article, it should be creative, catchy and encompass the essence of your entire article  Byline – ▪ This is where your name is right below the article  Lead ▪ A 1-2 sentence opening that should draw your reader in

3.  Preparing a profile will have you  Networking and meeting people you might not otherwise encounter.  It helps establish your authority as  A reporter who knows and understands important people.

4.  Profiles can be a kind of affirmation.  We show people facing and overcoming obstacles.  We look at what it takes and the kind of person you have to be to get something done.

5.  Profiles provide the measure of a community. ▪ Portraits of a ballplayer, ▪ A victim's rights advocate, ▪ A distinguished geneticist, ▪ A child genius, ▪ A civil rights figure, ▪ A congressman ▪ Are like the dabs of color in a pointillist painting.

6.  Celebrities are easiest.  There is an intrinsic interest. ▪ The challenge is to learn something about them that people don't already know.  People of accomplishment.  The challenge is to find the story behind the accomplishment. ▪ To write in scenes to show how difficult the task. ▪ To show what they had to give up to get where they wanted to go.

7.  Unusual people.  The challenge is to show how they're very much like the reader.  The audacious.  People who are out there on a limb, shaking things up. ▪ The challenge: Why are they that way?

8.  Each piece must have an underlying theme,  A promise that the story will take you some where. ▪ Write two or three sentences that describe what the story is about and where it's going to go ▪ (This is your lead)  Get everything you can, ▪ But try to leave everything out that doesn't fit into the theme.

9.  Finding the essence of the story ▪ Is the most difficult, but also the most important thing you'll do. ▪ You're the cook. ▪ You have most of the ingredients from the store, but what you are you going to add to it from your own cupboard? ▪ The story is not just about the subject, but the way you see that subject

10.  A day in the life.  Follow your character as she's doing things.  Describe the action then flashback in important moments in their life or provide biographical context for what she is doing.

11.  Use a basic chronology.  Start with the most interesting dramatic moment. ▪ Then flash back to where ever the story needs to start.  Plot the piece like a movie.  Somebody's got a problem - a complication. ▪ Your story promises a moment of insight and resolution.

12.  Deal with one aspect. ▪ What's the deal with this CEO who's been married six times? ▪ Why does he/she think her latest husband is the cat's meow? ▪ What are Alan Greenspan's reading habits? ▪ What's he getting out of Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." ▪ Why is Paul Allen so passionate about space travel?

13.  Push the story in a direction where the subjects are reluctant to go.  Do due diligence; ▪ research your subject's background.  Prep your subjects. ▪ In a sense you're going to be stalking them. ▪ Give them a feel for how big an intrusion this will be in their lives.

14.  Go over the story with your subject,  Not to say you should read it back word for word.  See if your impressions - your take - is in sync with your subject's.  It doesn't have line up exactly. ▪ But you need to be comfortable with the differences. ▪ Nothing should blindside your subject

15.  List and free write about  your talents,  Interests,  Passions  Experiences