Let's say that you run into a great story on your beat. Perhaps you are covering immigration and learn of the mysterious death of a border patrol guard. Or you are an outdoors writer who learns about a dramatic rescue of fishermen lost at sea. Or someone in your town wins the state's biggest lottery and decides to use the money to take a group of impoverished school children on a trip around the world. It's a big story, all right, by any definition. But how will you cover it? In occasional episodes in conventional news style? In a long Sunday project? Or perhaps in a serial narrative?

CREATING THE SERIAL NARRATIVE: A STARTER KIT

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If you are working on such a story, apply the elements against these dozen standards. See if they help clear both your news sense and your craft opportunities.

1.) The serial narrative focuses on a single character. Most of the story is told through this character's point of view.

There are a limited number of secondary or minor characters. If you have multiple characters and multiple story lines, it is better to choose the one-day story or the saga. As the story advances day to day, it is difficult for the reader to switch from character to character. In my serial novel, "Ain't Done Yet," almost every detail is seen through the eyes of the main character, investigative reporter Max Timlin. Max appears in every chapter, and the reader sees what Max sees.

2.) The serial narrative is best told in a single narrative line or plot, rather than through multiple threads or subplots.

The saga can sustain multiple threads, but the serial cannot, with the possible exception of a story that goes back and forth between two characters to contrast or connect them: A Klansman and a black preacher; an organ donor and a recipient. This does not mean that the story must be told in chronological order. Some narratives begin in the middle of things and then flash back.

3.) The story has enough plot twists, switchbacks, or surprises to create cliffhanger endings for chapters.

The cliffhanger is one of the indispensable tools for serials and sagas. In the late 1940s, Republic Pictures produced many adventure serials for the movies, from westerns to science fiction. Each installment ended with a car plunging off a cliff or a rocket ship colliding with an asteroid. It was all the incentive needed to return next week to the movie house. Cliffhangers need not be hyper-dramatic to work effectively. In his saga about a high school production of the musical "West Side Story," Ken Fuson makes us wait a day to learn which of the competing girls lands the lead role. Tom French, a master of the form, refers to this narrative energy as "enforced waiting." In most writing for newspapers, we give away the ending early. In the serial, we make the reader wait.

4.) The reporter has a "golden source" from which to draw.

Often this is the main character, or someone who knows the main character very well. Such a character may have suspicious motives for becoming an "open book," but in many cases good characters are willing to sacrifice their private selves for a public good. Such characters may permit you to follow along, or to accompany them during private moments, or to interview them at length many times. In other cases, the golden source can be a document: a trial transcript, a police investigation record, a journal or diary, a photo album or set of videos. The details and scenes and dialogue you'll need to write a serial narrative require not only a golden source, but the kind of immersive reporting that lets you see and hear some things with your own eyes and ears.

5.) The narrative train has an engine.

St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reporter Tom French coined the term "engine" to describe the overriding question the narrative seeks to answer: Will the 15-year-old girl be convicted of killing her mother? Will the transplant operation be successful? Will the painting turn out to be a fake or a priceless work of art? Will the Mexican man make it across the border safely? Will the old woman who hits the lottery still be able to attend Wednesday-night bingo? Each one of these is the engine to an actual serial narrative. As the last one indicates, serials need not be highly serious, although most are, perhaps to justify their length. Before you write a word, ask yourself: What question will this serial answer for the reader?

6.) Narrative energy derives from one of the following questions: "what happens next?" or "how did that happen?" or "what is learned or understood next?"

In "Three Little Words," the reader is driven by what happens next: Jane learns her husband has AIDS, she gets tested herself, she gets the results of the test, etc. In "Sadie's Ring," "the reader follows the author's path of understanding from the time he was a boy: that people hate others for who they are, not what they do; that such hate can take ritualistic forms; that families have secrets that when confronted can help create tolerance and acceptance. Some narratives can be fueled by more than one such question.

CAUTION: If you have to stop the narrative train numerous times for long explanatory passages, you may have a series but not a serial. You can explain lots of stuff, with or without sidebars and graphics, in a series. In a serial, all explanations must take place in the context of the story.

7.) The story is character-driven as well as plot-driven.

This excellent distinction is drawn by Jan Winburn, now an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and one of the experts on serial narratives. Jan argues that serials driven only by plot, where characterization is weak or thin, are much less satisfying than ones in which a character grows and develops. I agree. In fact, plot-driven narratives often lack the "golden source" that helps reveal character.

CAUTION: I have seen serials "fail" because the main character was not sufficiently sympathetic. A well-written serial about two sisters using artificial insemination flopped when many readers in the community found them unsympathetic.

ANOTHER CAUTION: Just because you like a character does not mean all readers will.

Although some authors strive for "seamless" narratives, most long stories lend themselves to division into parts. Mark Bowden wrote one of the most successful serial narratives for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Black Hawk Down" told the story of the war in Somalia, and Bowden wrote it in the form of a book it eventually became. It was left to his editor, David Zucchino, to help the author divide it into the 29 parts that would serve the newspaper and its readers. The number 29 is not arbitrary, although some divisions seem to be. The number 29 means that the serial can run for a month and begin and end on a Sunday. Think of the length of serials in these units: 8, 15, 22, 29. Each of these allows you to begin and end on a Sunday. Most serials will comprise fewer chapters than eight, and that's a good thing. Remember: A newspaper can choose to run more than one chapter on a single day. The chapter breaks give the editor the greatest flexibility.

9.) A place or habitat can be created for the story in the publication.

Serial narratives run in the newspaper every day. They are called comic strips. They have a "habitat" in the paper, a reliable place where readers can find them. Over time, readers develop the "habit" of visiting their favorite characters as part of their daily routines. The editor helps in this process of habituation by creating a home for the serial. For "Three Little Words," a 350-word prologue and photo appeared on the front page, and the first 850-word chapter appeared at the top of page 3A. Each subsequent chapter appeared in the same place, where readers could easily find it, and where it could be insulated from the unpredictable rhythms of breaking news. Serial chapters always work best when they don't jump pages, but many times that is impossible.

10.) The daily installments can be measured by ART: Approximate Reading Time.

In my professional life as a writer, I've been asked to measure my story in words, picas, column inches and pages. Why not, instead, measure a story, or a chapter, according to the time it takes to read? This will vary with the reader's ability and circumstances, but a rule of thumb is that a reader can read 100 words in 33 seconds. We can round it off to 200 a minute. A well-written 1,000 chapter can be read in five minutes. All stories should justify their lengths, but one of the unspoken secrets in American newsrooms is that many journalists don't bother to read the longest stories in their own newspapers. They're busy. They don't have the time. They, too, get their news online.

11.) The theme of the story touches on something important: public service, community interest, social relevance, war and its effects.

I've chosen to write my serials about big themes: AIDS (the plague of the 20th century); the Holocaust (the crime of the 20th century); and the millennium (the end of the 20th century). These big themes must be communicated through the lives and stories of specific people. It's hard, but not impossible, to justify publication of a serial narrative that lacks an imposing social purpose. You should try to state that purpose early in the process, share it with your editor, and, if it works, exemplify it in your story.

12.) There's a payoff at the end.

I'm not insisting on a sappy, happy ending, the usual stuff of television dramas. I am insisting on a "satisfying" ending, one that rewards the reader for the effort of having stuck with the serial. As two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Franklin has noted many times, it is not necessary for the woman to have survived the brain operation. But if she dies, it's important to know that the doctor tried his best and will keep trying to save lives. If your story is, in the end, dark, bleak, about barbarism and despair, the serial will magnify those effects.

OK. So you think you may have a serial. What now? Your newspaper has never published a story like that before. What are the arguments that the serial is good for the reader and good for the newspaper?

Tomorrow: Chapter Three -- A Story Form with Benefits