About Pluff

You are holding in your hands the latest issue of Pluff, the Charleston magazine for millennials. Actually, you are probably holding nothing in your hands (except, perhaps, your smartphone), since Pluff is strictly an online magazine.

      But that’s the point: Pluff is here to prove that regardless of how you receive it, storytelling is not a dead art. In fact, storytelling is more important than ever. It is the medium that has changed (from paper to electrons), not the message. And the message is that people want to read stories. They don’t want data points or facts or even charts and graphs. They want stories—about people, about places, about things to do. And that’s what Pluff has set out to do.

      Creating the second issue of Pluff (the first ran in spring 2013), was not easy. It began last January, when a class of 18 juniors and seniors at the College of Charleston began to consider what storytelling was about. To tell the truth, most didn’t know. They had been through much of the fine communications program at the college and were competent writers. They could spit out an expository piece of prose that could make you understand something new. Or they could spin out a press release that would make you leap out of your chair to see a new hotel or to write about a new cruise ship. But good, old-fashioned magazine storytelling? It was sparse.    

      It was up to adjunct professors Melissa Delaney and Erik Calonius to explain that storytelling (otherwise known as narrative nonfiction writing) is not much different than the storytelling of childhood. It begins with a once-upon-a-time paragraph that draws in the reader. Then it has a paragraph, called the nut graf, that explains to the reader what the story is all about. The story then continues with scenes and characters and dialogue—just like a novel, only in this case, everything has to be true and it needs a takeaway—in other words, new insight and information that readers can take away from the story. Finally, the story has to end as eloquently as it began. Delaney and Calonius taught students how to bring their stories full circle by closing out the scenes from their ledes or how to find the perfect quote to tie up the story.  

      How to start? First the students had to find stories. They began with a story ideas brainstorming session: How about a story about food trucks? Or one on Charleston’s burgeoning fashion industry? How about a profile on furniture king Morris Sokol? Or a look inside homeless shelters? Well, what about food trucks and fashion and furniture kings and homeless shelters? What’s the slant on the story? That took some more thinking and researching.

      Once the stories were approved, the students hit the streets. With notebooks in hand and with their tablets and phones recording the interviews, they spoke with the characters in their stories. It wasn’t always easy scheduling people on short notice—some couldn’t make it, others cancelled appointments. To nail down one interview, a student had to run from one end of Charleston to the other in the pouring rain. Another was put off countless times before finally tracking down her subject. Some stories just didn’t work out. They bombed, and the students had to find new ones.

      Eventually, the Pluff staff completed the reporting phase. Now they had to write their pieces. When they turned them in, however, dark clouds hovered over the classroom. Many were not stories. They were memos, press releases, reports—but not stories. Delaney and Calonius brought in copies of Esquire, Garden & Gun, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly and other magazines that showcase great writing so the students could see the end goal. They critiqued students’ stories and discussed how to transform their drafts into finals. “Does the lede pull in readers?” they would ask students. “Does it present all perspectives? … Can you hear the sources’ voices through their quotes? … Do the details take readers to the scenes? … Does the ending bring readers back to the lede or leave them thinking?” The next drafts were much better. The students were becoming storytellers.

      Once students completed a few smaller assignments, they were ready for the main features, which they wrote in teams. There were four great ideas—a story about veterans returning to Charleston and the services available to them; another about Line Street, a city neighborhood in transition; a look at the Charleston’s mayor’s race and the major issues affecting Pluff’s readership; and a story about Charleston’s high-tech business revolution.

      When all the stories were written and edited, the students fact checked and copyedited their own and each other’s work. They gathered photos—and took some of their own—and they designed the website. There was a mad dash as the semester drew to a close, but what magazine staff hasn’t faced the pressure of production deadlines?

      What you have before you, then, is a testament to storytelling. There are stories about small things—a dusty mirror shop on King Street and a puppet master who has come to town with his music and his marionettes—and big things—Charleston’s booming tech industry and its supportive community of veterans. But from it all, you will see a tapestry that is Charleston in the summer of 2015. Pluff has color, it has characters, it has beginnings and endings. In fact, the class itself has a happy ending, for in January we had few storytellers, but by May we had 18 of them.