Feature Writing The Art of Telling Stories

What’s a feature? Features are told in a less hurried and generally more creative way. Features almost never begin with the most important information like inverted pyramid stories. More stories are written in a feature style today.

Kinds of features Trend stories report on changes that happen gradually over time. –It’s often a good idea to personalize the leads of these stories.

Kinds of features cont. Profiles tell the story of a person or persons. Human interest stories in some way tell us more about what it means to be human. They have little impact; sometimes profiles can be human interest stories.

Related terms A sidebar accompanies a hard news story and is written in a feature style. A followup runs a day or more after the main news story and reports on results of earlier developments.

How do you write compelling features? Compelling features are written more like narrative stories than news stories They are humanistic –Make the reader feel empathy

Feature writing hint #1 Focus on a single person for your lead. –Tell the story through one person’s eyes; this requires good reporting.

Feature writing hint #2 Focus on an incident or anecdote. –Retell a specific moment or scene for your lead. Show, don’t tell. Showing: Tears streamed down her face as soon as she heard the name, “Jane Smith” announced. Telling: She was upset when she heard someone else’s name announced.

Feature writing hint #3 Enhance your story with: –Dialogue –Startling facts or statistics –Rhetorical devices Simile Metaphor Personification –Sensory details

Feature writing hint #4 Describe a setting as a way of establishing the theme of a piece

Feature Lead Introduce the reader to the subject of the story Use any of the previous four tips to begin your story –Start with the one that has the most relevance to your topic

Feature Body The billboard or so-what graph –This comes after the feature lead. (Feature leads can be several paragraphs.) – It tells what the story is about.

Feature Body (cont) Keep related material together Divide piece into sections. –Each section tells a different part of the story. End stories in memorable ways. Often it’s a good to use a quote. This is called a clincher.

Your Assignment Read “A close look at life in the Mojave” Analyze the lead (first four paragraphs) –What type of writing/devices does the writer use to draw in the reader? Analyze the body –What type of feature story is this? –How do you know?