1. Journalism Today! Chapter 10
Writing Feature Stories

2. Feature Stories – Humanizing the News
Feature Vs. News Story
Lighter
More human
Can be funnier
Often not related to any current event
Often not written in inverted pyramid
Can be about anything, anybody

3. Timelessness Many features are evergreens
Online habits
Unusual hobbies
Personality profiles
“News-Feature” – connected to a specific item of current news (these stories have a “news peg”; often published as color sidebar)

4. Creative Style
Feature writers have more freedom with language! (voice, tone)
More opportunity to be creative, clever, colorful with language (not so boring, dry as news stories)

5. Creative Style Still – NO opinion or speculation! Fanciness beware!
Writers (esp. beginners) can kill features if too creative – style/voice/cleverness overpowers the content of the feature itself . . .

6. Subject Matter No subject matter limit
Can be historical – throw new light on old subject or review a past event
Remote places, remarkable or obscure people
Can be written in first person
Above all, subject must interest people!

7. The Personality Feature
All people are possible subjects for feature stories
Incident, idea, problem, thought, opinion, hobby that will make an interesting reading
Students or teachers at school and their special accomplishments

8. The Personality Feature
Lots of stories include published quotes about principal, superintendent, class president, etc.
But Usually no personality feature
Most students probably don’t really know anything about these people
Senior Athlete, Senior Standout, Spotlight of the month, Rookie of the issue, Teacher of the issue

9. The Personality Feature
“Who is this person anyway?” “What does Dr. Rauscher/Mr. Berferschmidt do on the weekends?”
If you ask enough questions, you’re bound to get something for a feature story
THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE for the hard work of digging for facts!!!

10. Finding subjects . . .
Gather ideas from your own experiences or the experiences of relatives/close friends – these are the best places to find ideas for features (the human interest elements)
Never stop thinking of ideas for features/evergreens!