Critical Reflection - People at the Pool

At the end of last year I was extremely excited to be told that I would be a feature writer because ideally that is the area of journalism I want to have a career in. Unfortunately at the start of this academic year I was disappointed to learn that I would also be producing feature video packages as well as writing; and video is not something that interests me at the moment. 

After speaking to Chris he explained that the good thing about the journalism course here is that I am able to adapt it to suit my needs so that I am able to get the most out of my time here. I explained that I wanted to be producing purely written features, and after some discussion with Chris it was decided that I would have a column called 'Diary of a Winchester Lady.'

I am absolutely thrilled about this because a weekly column of social observational journalism is ideal for me. I decided to write my first column about my experience of going to the public swimming pool here in Winchester. I thought it would be a good topic because a swimming pool is always host to a wide variety of people.

After writing my first draft, I had a feedback session with Chris. He explained that my piece was too much "telling" and not enough "seeing" , in the sense that all I had really done was describe what had happened without giving any real detail that would be interesting to the reader.

I learned that feature writing has to be sensory - everything I talk about should be described through the five senses so that anyone reading it is able to accurately imagine what I am talking about. The importance of how my piece would be interpreted by the reader had not really occurred to me when I wrote the first draft, so when I came to write the final copy I made sure that I kept the reader in my mind the whole time. This led to a much more descriptive piece, which hopefully has led to a more interesting piece to read.  

One way I described the pool through the senses was:

'...you will also hear a blend of incredibly annoying sounds including children squealing, agitated parents screaming at them, and an intermittent shrill whistle that will echo around the room and make you feel as though someone is piercing through your eardrum with a rusty needle.'

Something else I had not considered before my feedback session was my use of the word 'oddity'. Chris explained that it is not up to me to tell the reader whether something is odd, it is up to the reader to decide that for themselves. This is something that I will remember when writing my column in the future, because everyone has differing opinions about any given situation, and it is not my place to tell the reader how they should feel about anything.

I had a similar problem when writing my first draft because I had also not considered what effect the use of punctuation would have. For example, I used exclamation marks throughout my first draft when I thought I had written something amusing. Chris explained that there is no place for exclamation marks, or as he called the 'screamers', unless I am quoting someone who was actually screaming at the time. Again, I was telling the reader that I was making a joke, where as it is up to the reader to decide whether something is funny or not.

With my final version of this piece I tried to give it more of a recognisable form. Instead of just describing my trip I decided to start by making the people in the swimming pool sound like ingredients in a recipe. I did this because I thought that it would be humorous to the reader, as well as being a style that most people will recognise. I feel that it also made the piece more interesting because it allowed the reader to understand the form of a recipe, but took this form out of context which is not something you would expect.


I took the content from the first draft and expanded on the things which I had been "telling" the reader and instead took the things further so that the audience could "see" what I was talking about and possibly even relate to. For example, in my first draft I simply told the reader that there was a life guard there and in my final piece I described the lifeguard with his 'yellow t-shirt and red shorts...like some kind of colour blind superhero.' I think that was an improvement because the reader can relate to the recognisable colours of a lifeguard's uniform, and I hoped to bring some humour to the piece with my description.

Ultimately I am extremely happy with how the piece turned out, and am grateful that I made errors in my first draft because now I have learnt lessons that I will remember in all future pieces that I write. I am thoroughly looking forward to continuing with my column and hope that it will be something that readers will enjoy and be able to relate to.