On Track

In a sense, then, "The Crossing" is something of a throwback, and an unusual one. As rendered by Vaughan, the crash and its immediate aftermath hang together chronologically (especially when read in one chunk). But subsequent segments, which tell what happened to survivors or the loved ones of those who died, necessarily shoot off in a slew of directions. These chapters are generally self-contained and relatively brief, in the "Three Little Words" tradition. However, they often have little connection to those they come before or after other than the accident itself, and because they skip forward and backward through time depending upon the events of particular characters' lives, the narrative flags at times. As a result, the series feels a bit like a relatively succinct feature with a couple dozen sidebars, some of which are extraordinarily compelling (like chapter sixteen, about crash survivor Glen Ford, who became, of all things, a schoolbus driver), others not so much (e.g., chapter twenty-five, about three individuals who more or less shrug off what happened to them).

As for the readers who've contacted Vaughan since "The Crossing" bowed, most fall into one of two camps. Early on, he says, "I got reaction along the lines of 'Why are you reliving this horrible tragedy? Why are you hurting these people again?'" But as the series wore on, these naysayers were overwhelmed by those with positive comments. At the second forum, he notes, "There wasn't a single critical question." A full week after the series wrapped, Vaughan was still receiving more than a dozen e-mails daily saluting his accomplishment.

To the Poynter Institute's Clark, this reaction is heartening. He's written a primer on serial narratives called "Creating the Breakfast Serial: A Starter Kit" that began appearing on the Poynter website on February 19, and he's convinced that newspapers can use this approach to hang on to readers who might otherwise abandon them in favor of alternative media. "If I ran a newspaper, I'd have a serial going at all times," he says.

Vaughan's become a believer in the form, too, even if it's pushed him closer to the spotlight than he'd like to be. "In this world we live in, newspapers are going to have to be more transparent and more open to the people who read them," he says, "and anything we can do to help them see who we are and why we do what we do is good."

He's game: For more than two years, David Thomas, who writes about video games for the Post, has been working on a style guide to help professionalize the coverage of this burgeoning beat -- and it's finally done. The Videogame Style Guide and Reference Manual, which he penned with fellow game journalists Kyle Orland and Scott Steinberg, is slated for publication on June 1 and will be available electronically to the working press in the coming days. See www. gamestyleguide.com for more details.

Among the most contentious question the book tackles is, should "video game" be one word or two? As evidenced by the book's title, Thomas believes in the power of one; although he feels the two-word usage is acceptable, he thinks the space-free spelling acknowledges the rise of this rapidly growing industry -- and besides, he argues, "'video' isn't really a modifier of 'game.'" Plenty of people disagree with this logic, though, and Thomas says "some of them get really violent about it. There was a posting on one blog that said, 'These guys are idiots. "Video games" is two words, so that makes everything else about the guide suspect.'"

Sorry, David: The folks in the Westword copy department concur that two words are better than one. The fight is on.