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Feature Writing

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.

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Feature Writing

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  1. Feature Writing The Art of Telling Stories

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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

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

  8. 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.

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

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

  11. 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

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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?

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