TRUE STORY

This Might Be My Most Epic Failure to Date

You’ll Never Guess What I Went and Did

I’m as dejected as this dog. Photo by sianbuckler on pixabay.com

Seven days ago, I started working on a story outside my usual genre. It required hours of research. Days, in fact. I then had to try and learn how to report a story rather than, you know, get the thoughts in my head down on paper. It turns out it’s not that easy. All hail the reporters.

Let me share the beginning of my first draft with you so you get the idea:

The best true stories are genuinely unbelievable. One such story has been unfolding in the UK for decades.

Imagine you are a hard-working, honest and well-respected member of your community. Imagine waking up one day to find you have been charged with theft. Imagine you are convicted, and your name is splashed across the pages of your local newspaper. Imagine you are bankrupted. Imagine you lose your home. Imagine you are sent to prison. And all the while, you are innocent. Imagine variations of this happening not to one but to over 700 people. All of them innocent.

I know. It’s not great, and there is too much text in that second paragraph, but it was a FIRST draft, a work in progress.

I struggled to find a way to tell the story in this new, grown-up style, and after five days of…