This article is part of a series called Backstory where I reveal how feature and in-depth stories were crafted. You can find more with the Backstory tag by searching “Backstory” in the search bar.
The original story was published here:
https://journalmontfort.com/2021/05/08/en-francais-sil-vous-plait/
This was an article written for one class – I spent the entire semester writing it. The instructor wanted to teach us the art of putting a huge article together to help prepare for our master’s research project. But if you think about it, squeezing about a dozen voices into a measly 2,000 words isn’t easy.
The most difficult parts were during the beginning and the end. I had to think of a great idea to write about that would still be relevant several months down the line, and I had to stitch the whole thing together without losing the reader’s interest or confusing them. The key was to start early, get ahead, and stay ahead.
I thought up a couple of feasible options during winter in anticipation for this assignment and ended up picking a health-related story. There isn’t any fruit that hangs lower than healthcare during a pandemic. When I had COVID-19 during March 2020 in Geneva, I found it very difficult to access healthcare in my preferred national language – German. I struggled to navigate phone numbers, speak to administrators, and search for clinics in French while being sick. By my third day, I managed to find an English-speaking house call doctor. I wondered if French-speaking people had the same struggle in Ottawa – they did.
Having a whole ten weeks to work on the article definitely helped. I reached out to healthcare advocacy groups, spoke to the CEO of a francophone hospital in Ottawa, got explanations from professors in the field of language and healthcare, and interviewed relatives of patients. I even got a provincial politician on the phone! By that point, this was the largest story I wrote, and I was proud of it.
Starting early gave me another advantage – I got over 400 pages of data released via an Access to Information request. I love data and I love the visual representation of data. I combed through the information, plot them into an Excel spreadsheet, and churned out some data tables on Tableau to spot trends to report on.
I was very grateful that the instructor allowed us to submit multiple drafts so we could home in the structure of the article. I was encouraged to write, rewrite, and reorder different quotes and elements to see what worked and what didn’t The only problem with having so many quotes is that I have to be very strategic about what to use where.
The published version isn’t the same as the version I submitted for assessment. I rewrote the article based on instructor feedback, then got it translated into French by staff writers of the journal before it went up. I liked it, and I think it did justice for the people I interviewed.
