I'm still learning how it works, but I was wondering if it was possible to have stories that aren't the top story anymore to automatically have a thumbnail image with a teaser story on it. I want to have 1 top story, and then 5 small stories but the small stories are the ones that filter down from being a top story. Basically how http://www.mtv.com/news/ has it...
Yes, but that would requires some custom editing to your template I think. Than from there on, use the custom fields option to place your thumbmail images.
Custom fields? Do I do that in the wordpress dashboard or in the php files? I was also curious to see if I could change the <p> to <br>?
As Swiftblade said, you will need to edit your template adding an additional loop that calls the first post in a particular category, i.e., "featured posts". You access the custom fields from the WordPress dashboard. Take a look the Morning After Theme. It employs both of these techniques. http://themasterplan.in/themes/the-morning-after/ You can get a bit of info on creating "sticky posts" here... http://shaunandrews.com/2006/07/14/wordpress-sticky-posts/ If this is beyond your skill set, search for a sticky posts plugin. Not as powerful but will at least leave a particular post on the top.