Narrative Journalism

Narrative journalism, also called literary journalism, is a form of creative nonfiction that applies the literary techniques of fiction, such as scene-setting, dialogue and chronological or episodic structure, to factual reporting rather than following the inverted-pyramid format of conventional news writing. Its structure typically unfolds through a setting, a complication and an outcome, treating its real subjects as characters within a plot. Early examples include Jack London's The People of the Abyss, and the form's most prominent flowering came in the 1960s through writers including Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe, whose own New Journalism and Hunter S. Thompson's Gonzo journalism are more specific, author-centered strands within this broader genre.