Obligation to the Story

You could have given another journalist the same access I had during the same time period with the same battalion with the same series of events, and that journalist would have written a story just as true but very different from mine.

So what happens? You go over with a certain amount of curiosity, and things start to take shape, and patterns emerge. You find yourself moved by certain things and paying more and more attention. A story develops from that. You spend enough time, and eventually you gain some confidence in the notion that what you’re paying attention to is the thing worth writing about.

David Finkel over on Nieman Storyboard. Well worth reading.