Laying In The Pieces

I have discovered over the last month that editing a news package is often not a straightforward, beginning-to-end endeavor. Often the necessary pieces come in one by one, so that, as with a jigsaw puzzle, the editor builds an outline, then fits together the inner pieces as they arrive. It is a new way to think, a new way to work--with a little predicting, a little guessing, and often a little scrambling once all the pieces are available.

What I am learning is that, in news packages, as in life, you don't really have to know everything in order to start something. You don't have to have all the answers in order to make a lot of progress. And you don't have to be sure about the whole road in order to take the first steps. In the absence of complete information, we learn to guess a little. We learn to estimate, using the knowledge we already have, so that when the rest of the material arrives, we are prepared, with spaces to put it, and ideas about how it will fit. We won't always know which "soundbites" will make the most difference to us. Our view may be affected by how our story is written or narrated. But by beginning to lay out our story, even before all its pieces are there, we can be more prepared to make adjustments along the way. So that making a good story--in news and in life--becomes as simple as just laying in the pieces.