ABSTRACT
How close am I to the story? The question of emotional distance is examined through the first-person element of stance. Is the writer close to the events that happened or a more distant observer? This chapter, the last of Part Two’s sequence on the active “I” voice, starts with how point of view relates to positioning a first-person voice in a feature story. It then covers five different stances and story types—analyzer (topical features and opinion), adviser (how-to pieces and self-help), witness (direct reports), storyteller (narratives), and interpreter (essays)—with examples by Emmanuel Carrère, Alex Tizon, James Baldwin, and other well-known nonfiction writers. Establishing a stance relies on a crucial tool for first-person journalists: self-awareness. Strong emotion has a place in first-person journalism, but reporting with enough distance is the bigger challenge.
