To humanize, to add color, to entertain, to surprise--these are what set apart the feature story from the others. Generally, an element of human interest is involved.
"Readers get bombarded with heavy news everyday. Sometimes they just want to take a break from it all and read something light and entertaining. This is why we are writing features," Erma Cuizon, editor of Sun Star Weekend, once said to me.
A feature story can stand alone, or it can be a sidebar (a story providing additional information to the main story).
It might or might not be related to a news event, but it delivers the news or story in a lighter, more creative way. You may not even find the who-what-when-where-why-how typically crammed in the lead, like in news writing.
"If the news story structure is known as an inverted pyramid, the feature could be described as an hourglass. Instead of starting with the most juicy, timely or relevant details--and working down to less gripping information--the feature hooks the reader in with the lead, winds through with a narrative based on research and interviews and then leads to a conclusion." (http://cup.ca/writingguide/sfeature.html)
The Elements of Feature Writing
(1) Vision (4) Ideas (7) Color
(3) Form (6) People (9) Judgment
(2) Focus (5) Grabs (8) Explanation
Types of Features
Personality profiles: These are stories on people who are in the public eye: celebrities, officials and other prominent figures in the society. This type of features brings the readers closer to the person being written about. Interviews and observations, as well as creative writing, are used to paint a vivid picture of the person.
Human interest stories: These stories focus on a subject's oddity, or its emotional, practical or entertainment value. I think human interest stories are wonderfully poetic because these let us appreciate the simpler, yet wonderful things in life that we may not always notice. Writing about ordinary people leading extraordinary lives is an example.
Trend stories: When you are writing about the latest fads, you are writing a trend story. A trend story examines people, things or organizations that are currently making waves.
Backgrounders: A backgrounder, also called an analysis piece, further explains current news issues and gives them a fresher perspective. These articles bring an audience up-to-date with a current story by explaining its past and present situation.
In-depth stories: In-depth stories provide a detailed account of a person or event. These stories are likely to cover sensitive or controversial topics or issues, so you will need heavy research and interviews. Because they are in-depth, they are obviously lengthier than your basic feature story.
Tips from Writers
The most effective feature story is the one that can touch your readers' nerves. How do you get people to connect with your subject? You do this by giving your story a human face.
When Orlando "Orly" Cajegas, a well-known feature writer in Cebu City, writes one of his features, people talk about it. Orly's forte is doing personality profiles and human interest stories. He is very good at getting readers glued to his story. "Sometimes we get overwhelmed by our subject that we end up sort of like glorifying him or her. So they become like these perfect creatures up a pedestal," he told me during a brainstorming session at Weekend. Humanize your subject, he advised.
Detail is also very important. "You are the readers' eye. Help them read the articles as if they were right there with you during the interview," advised features editor Mae Manacap during a writing workshop I attended in college.
Set the scene by including details about the subject's surroundings, personal mannerisms and characteristics. Did your subject laugh right after she said a particular sentence? What else did you notice? These tidbits always get the readers' attention.
"Use quotes to run your story along," Mae added. Work on transitions between quotes so that your story maintains the readers interest. Quotes give your subject personality, especially when you leave a quote exactly how your subject said it.
Getting Started
What's cool about feature writing is the surprising amount of literary flexibility it allows you. You can be descriptive, set a scene, narrate a story, explore an aspect in a person's life, use anecdotes, play with words, and surprise the reader. You don't even have to stick to the standard inverted pyramid technique used in news writing to cramp your style or limit your creativity.
"A good feature writer is always paying attention to what is going on around them. They read everything they can, listen to gossip and other people's conversations, watch television and listen to radio, and observe everything they encounter in their daily life. By immersing yourself with a barrage of information, you can develop a germ of an idea and let yourself go wild with it.
Brainstorm by jotting down every aspect of a topic -- but don't edit yourself at first, just come up with a slew of ideas until you hit on an interesting theme. After you have decided on a focused subject for an article, look critically at your ideas. Toss what's been done to death and come up with a fresh angle. Narrow your idea into a tightly-focused story proposal by describing it in a five-word title, or maybe shape it into the main question you'd want your story to answer.
Once you have chosen a topic to write on, it's research time. Look through back issues of your paper, the city paper and publications related to the topic. Once you're familiar with your area, decide who you'll talk to, look for their phone numbers and draw up a list of questions for them.
Like a news story, interviewing people for a feature means you must listen carefully to the answers. But the process should be aided by keeping your eyes and ears on alert for detail: the way people look, talk, and move. What does a place look like? Pay attention to the sights, sounds and smells around you. And watch for physical elements that can act as a metaphor. Books on a bookshelf, for instance, are a great way to illustrate someone's mindset.
Most straight news writing tends to be very dry. But in a feature, you can add lots of color by giving the players in your story a human face. What would be considered useless information in a hard news piece--the way someone dresses, a person's daily routine, the decorations in someone's office or apartment--can become very important in a feature.
As you have probably figured out, however, a feature requires you to synthesize a lot more information than a news piece. That is why the first draft of a feature is simply a way to get all your information down on paper or onto the computer screen. Type the most important parts of your notes out, write key sections, then cut-and-paste them into some sort of coherent order. You can refine your lead, add or delete quotes or whole interviews, and juggle the sequence around as you progress.
As you write your second or further drafts, you may discover that some questions are left unanswered and that more research, or additional interviews, is needed. Have someone read your drafts and offer an outsider's point of view before you fine-tune your final version.
The final step is to edit your feature for clarity and color. It is at this point where you refine sentences, find better choices for words, cut out phrase clutter, and ensure your story flows in a coherent fashion. Pay special attention to the lead--the opening lines of your story that serve to grab the interest of your readers and pull them into the story.
In the middle, make sure you build your thesis up carefully, point by point. But avoid 'ping-pong journalism'. Don't just bounce from one source to another, contrasting their arguments. The reader will go bug-eyed. Interject differing opinions selectively within a section.
Finally, the conclusion should not trail off as many news stories do. It should draw the strings together and give the piece a sense of cohesion. In a feature you have lots of space to work with, so do not feel like you have to write an upbeat ending, or decide the fate of the world in one final sentence." (http://cup.ca/writingguide/sfeature.html)
by Mollie Gilmore, Dispatch Times
Lifted from http://media.gatewayva.com/rtd/images/extras/features.doc
1. The use of color and detail. Set the scene. Put the reader there. Describe how things look, feel, smell.
2. Good use of quotation. Quotes vary the pace of the story. Plus, a person's own words add drama and emotion.
3. Use of anecdotes (the story within a story). Many features include anecdotes in which the subject being interviewed might share a story or personal experience to illustrate a point or provide background. These can easily be woven into a story and sometimes might even provide the writer with a good lead.
4. Length. A good feature can be long or short. Try to give your story a definite beginning, middle and end. Surprise endings often work well with features.
5. Rewriting. With features, it's easy to get carried away, so don't go overboard with unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. Always proofread your work and rewrite. More than any other kind of news writing, feature stories benefit from several rewrites, time permitting.
Feature Leads
When writing feature leads, it is essential to grab the reader's attention, encouraging him to read the article. A weak or poorly written lead leaves the impression that the rest of the story will be of the same quality. The following lead examples show some of the many ways to begin a feature article.
1. Striking statement -- short, snappy, explosive statement intended to surprise the reader.
Ex. Papa Smurf paid a visit to PHS last week.
Ex. You don't have to look far to find discrimination at PHS.
2. Contrast -- plays up opposites or extremes.
Ex. Snow still covers the ground, but practice for spring sports is in full swing.
Ex. Nub Fremont dropped out of school after the sixth grade, but he now is one of Clarkstown's wealthiest citizens.
3. Literary or historical allusion -- uses reference to history or literature or culture to help reader identify with the situation to be explained in the story.
Ex. Like the story of David and Goliath, tiny Arcadia High School defeated Hampton High School, the state's reigning football giant, in spectacular fashion Saturday night.
Ex. Tabb High School's state championship hopes sank quicker than the Titanic when Terry Kirby broke his ankle in the first quarter of last week's game.
4. Suspended interest -- enticing readers to continue reading by slowly adding or inserting interesting, surprising facts into introduction, or using sly, humorous references or information to whet reader's appetite or tease reader's curiosity.
Ex. John Murphy was involved in a two-car, one-bicycle, one-snake accident in late October.
5. Quotation -- gets main character(s) of story into the opening immediately. (WARNING: RARELY USED BY GOOD WRITERS; PARAPHRASE OR PARTIAL QUOTE WORKS MUCH BETTER IN LEAD PARAGRAPH)
Ex. "Unless there is dramatic improvement in student behavior, we soon will be forced to resort to torture and corporal punishment," said senior Larry Johnson, who was acting principal in last weeks Student Government Day.
Lifted from http://www.mala.bc.ca/~soules/CMC290/feature.htm
Feature writers seldom use the inverted-pyramid form. Instead, they may write a chronology that builds to a climax at the end, a narrative, a first-person article about one of their own experiences or a combination of these. Their stories are held together by a thread, and they often end where the lead started, with a single person or event. Here are the steps typically followed in organizing a feature story:
Choose the theme. The theme is similar to the thesis of a scholarly paper and provides unity and coherence to the piece. It should not be too broad or too narrow. Several factors come into play when choosing a theme: Has the story been done before? Is the story of interest to the audience? Does the story have holding power (emotional appeal)? What makes the story worthy of being reported? The theme answers the question, "So what?"
Write a lead that invites an audience into the story. A summary may not be the best lead for a feature. A lead block of one or two paragraphs often begins a feature. Rather than put the news elements of the story in the lead, the feature writer uses the first two or three paragraphs to set a mood, to arouse readers, to invite them inside.
Then the news peg or the significance of the story is provided in the third or fourth paragraph, the nut graph. Because it explains the reason the story is being written, the nut graph--also called the "so what" graph--is a vital paragraph in every feature. The nut graph should be high in the story. Do not make readers wait until the 10th or 11th paragraph before telling them what the story is about.
The body provides vital information while it educates, entertains, and emotionally ties an audience to the subject. The ending will wrap up the story and come back to the lead, often with a quotation or a surprising climax. Important components of the body of a feature story are background information, the thread of the story, transition, dialogue, and voice.
Provide vital background information. If appropriate, a paragraph or two of background should be placed high in the story to bring the audience up to date.
Write clear, concise sentences. Sprinkle direct quotations, observations and additional background throughout the story. Paragraphs can be written chronologically or in order of importance.
Use a thread. Connect the beginning, body and conclusion of the story. Because a feature generally runs longer than a news story, it is effective to weave a thread throughout the story, which connects the lead to the body and to the conclusion. This thread can be a single person, an event or a thing, and it usually highlights the theme.
Use transition. Connect paragraphs with transitional words, paraphrases, and direct quotations. Transition is particularly important in a long feature examining several people or events because it is the tool writers use to move subtly from one person or topic to the next. Transition keeps readers from being jarred by the writing.
Use dialogue when possible. Feature writers, like fiction writers, often use dialogue to keep a story moving. Of course, feature writers cannot make up dialogue; they listen for it during the reporting process. Good dialogue is like good observation in a story; it gives readers strong mental images and keeps them attached to the writing and to the story's key players.
Establish a voice. Another key element that holds a feature together is voice, the "signature" or personal style of each writer. Voice is the personality of the writer and can be used to inject colour, tone, and subtle emotional commentary into the story. Voice should be used subtly (unless you're able to make a fetish of it like Hunter S. Thompson!). The blatant intrusion of a distinctive voice into news writing has been called gonzo journalism--an irresponsible, if entertaining, trend in contemporary writing according to traditionalists.
Conclude with a quotation or another part of the thread. A feature can trail off like a news story or it can be concluded with a climax. Often, a feature ends where the lead started, with a single person or event.
[Summarized by Martin Soules from Bruce Itule & Douglas Anderson, News Writing and Reporting for Today's Media, 3rd. Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.]
By Travis E. Poling
Lifted from the Society of Professional Journalists website
Good features use narrative
Good features that grab a reader and don't let go have much in common. The stories have anecdotes, telling quotes, scene setting and tight, lively prose.
But what sets top-notch feature writing apart from the pack of promising prose is the narrative thread. There are two threads of a story-- one for the reporting process and the other that makes it into print.
When a reporter sees a glimmer of promise in a potential story, he or she grabs those obvious reporting threads and starts pulling to reveal details, secrets, motives, emotions. That is good reporting.
The second thread is the narrative thread that weaves the whole story together from beginning to end. That is good writing.
This is pretty basic stuff, but it is not easy to execute.
Poring through dozens of entries in this year s Sigma Delta Chi Awards competition, there was little chaff to separate from the wheat. Strong reporting, good ideas and solid writing characterized most of the stories.
But it was the execution of the narrative weave that made the best stories grippers.
A strong, well-written piece can easily fall apart when the story skips around and abandons a strong narrative. Pull on the narrative thread. If it comes out in pieces, it is time to rethread the needle and start again.
lifted from http://cup.ca/writingguide/sfeature.html
A significant development in the art of feature writing over the past few decades is the rise and decline of what's called New Journalism. This style of writing challenges the traditions of objective writing in the commercial press and relies on a more literary style.
New Journalism can be traced back to the 1960s when reporters like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe turned news writing on its head. Central to the philosophy of New Journalism is the belief that a reporter should become part of any scene they are reporting on. This call for subjectivity, in sharp contrast to the detached approach advocated in most news room, is a radical step.
Most reporters make sure they participate as little as possible in any event they're covering. For instance, a reporter writing on a demonstration will refrain from marching in the rally. In contrast, New Journalism advocates that reporters become part of the event. So when Hunter S. Thompson wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas --his seminal 70s novel on a drug crazed adventure in Vegas--he didn't interview policemen, gamblers or tourists. Rather, he got stoned off his rockers and chose to portray Las Vegas through his drug crazed eyes.
Not all New Journalism is as crazy as the writings of Thompson. A reporter who sleeps on the street for a period of time, while working on a feature of homelessness, is engaging in New Journalism. Some refer to this form of reporting as participatory observation.
New Journalism, however, is not synonymous with mainstream investigative reporting. A key difference between investigative journalism, as practiced by the Washington Post during Watergate, and New Journalism is found in distinct writing styles.
Investigative reporters rely on standard writing techniques, such as the inverted pyramid. New Journalists, on the other hand, revel in unconventional writing forms. These flowery techniques range from word play to descriptive phrases that are more at place in a novel than a conventional newspaper.
As an example, compare these two approaches:
Mainstream Approach
Bob Archer, the student president at Wisconsin University, was arrested Monday for trafficking in marijuana.
More than 100 plants were confiscated from the 23-year-old's home.
"This is a smear campaign," he said while placed under arrest, "people have a right to use drugs for treatment."
Archer, a well-known AIDS activist, had been supplying marijuana to HIV positive patients across the state for over a year.
New Journalism
Ra-ta-ta-tat!
Smooth rain drops splashed across Adam Sach's brow, but the noise would not wash away.
Ra-ta-ta-tat!
The throbbing grew in his brain like a jackhammer at full-speed. Slowly it built: loud, Larger, PAINFUL! There was no pot left in metal tin to slow the migraines swirling in his head.
And Bob Archer was in jail, which only meant one thing: Ra-ta-ta-tat!
Final Thoughts
New Journalism provides a fascinating muse for a reporter to work with. The freedom and excitement it offers is appealing to many media scribes. Be wary, however, of not succumbing to the pitfalls of the ego. Too often reporters experimenting with New Journalism begin describing themselves and their fantasies at the expense of the larger story. Like all experiments, use this style with caution.
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