1. Journalism/Yearbook Mr. Beary
Writing Features
Journalism/Yearbook
Mr. Beary

2. Marco Polio Dedicates His Life to Cow Protection
A lot of things have changed for Marco Polio since we first met him while learning about news writing. The emotional stress of his accident with Sasha lead him to have to deal with a great deal of depression. He was so sad, he stopped going to work and eventually lost his job. Not sure where to go next in life, Marco Polio found himself wandering around the beef aisle of his local Whole Foods one night. There, he began to wonder, “Why is it so wrong for me to accidentally kill a cow with my car, but it’s okay to kill a cow for meat?” Marco Polio knew what he had to do. He began writing an online blog dedicated to vegetarianism, specifically, the protection of cows from being raised for hamburger, beef, veal, or steak. Marco Polio is now the world’s leading defender of cows and other livestock, dedicating his life to making sure no cow ever dies again.

3. When News Writing Isn’t Enough...
Marco Polio’s amazing story could be told with a news article, but it is unlikely that we’d be able to do the story justice with news writing’s strict rules and formats.
For stories with an important emotional edge and not as much importance, we can write features, giving us a chance to share the story without compromising the important restrictions within journalism.

4. Feature Writing
We have discussed news writing at length. The purpose of news writing is to convey information. News writing is known as “hard news.”
Features are known as “soft news.” Their goal is to entertain more than to inform.

5. Feature Writing
Despite not being hard news, features still abide by the Transition/Quote Inverted Pyramid: you just replace the word “important” with “interesting.”
Therefore, the most interesting information goes first, followed by a quote, followed by a transition into the next most interesting piece of information, and so on.
Features tell a story through...
Many quotes
Detailed description
Vivid, lively writing

6. Leads for Features
The opening sentence needs to grab and hold the reader’s attention by using specific, interesting words.
The lead should capture the spirit of the story: serious, sarcastic, ironic, flippant, melancholy, etc.
They should be original, in the third person, and be specific to your story.
Start specific and then go general.

7. Types of Leads for Features
Narrative – Tells a story
Descriptive – Describes a scene, person, or subject
Direct Quote – Opens with a quote directly from the subject of the feature
Startling Statement – Something surprising and dramatic
Twist – Sets the reader up to think you’re writing about one thing, but then you surprise them.

8. Narrative – Tells a Story
On senior Alicia Brigg’s two-hour trip with her parents to church, she turned around and noticed that in the back of the Suburban all her bags were packed.
“All of the sudden, I realized I wasn‘t going to church; I was on my way to the airport,” she said.
“I started screaming, crying and swearing at my dad,
trying to figure out what was happening.”
That’s when her dad told his 17-year-old daughter
he had put her up for adoption

9. Descriptive – Describes a Scene/Person
Standing in the lunch line, the boy turned to April Haler and asked, “Will you be my girlfriend?” Then he turned to his buddy and started laughing. Just another cruel joke on the fat kid. April, who once weighed almost 300 pounds, is used to them. Since elementary school she has been teased and taunted about her weight. “I remember being called horrible names in elementary school every time we went to the playground,” the sophomore said. But life is changing

10. Direct Quote – Use Rarely, Must Be Very Powerful
“Hang in there.” “Don’t leave us.” “Everything is going to be alright.” The first responders to the car accident continued to encourage the woman to keep fighting, trying to convince her that there was still hope. Even they didn’t know if they were lying.

11. Startling Statement – Surprising and Dramatic
Melissa hates school. It’s not that she’s dumb. It’s not that she doesn’t fit in. In fact, there isn’t anything particularly wrong. It’s more of a matter of nothing being particularly right.

12. Twists – Set One Mood, then Surprise the Reader with Another
After tension-filled hours of preparing, the time had come for the contestants to walk across stage to the adoring eyes of the judges and the appreciative crowd. Some walked with confidence. Others were distract by the cameras and walked more slowly. A few were overcome from the pressure and foamed at the mouth and mooed. This isn’t your normal beauty pageant. It’s not gorgeous women competing, but cows, and they’re not being judged on their beauty, but on the steaks and burgers they will eventually become.

13. Combine
Various types of leads can be combined. Try writing a lead for our Marco Polio story using these combinations:
Starting Statement/Narrative/Twist
Narrative/Twist/Description
Direct Quote/Description/Narrative

14. Last Minute Advice
Never use cliches such as “take one for the team” or “life is short.”
Never use “imagine this...” They are rarely good and are limiting.

15. Nut Graph After your lead, you will write the nut graph.
The nut graph answers the WWWWWH of the story, and is essentially a summary of your feature.
It is similar to what you may have used as a lead if this were a hard news story.
Following the nut graph, structure your story in the Transition/Quote Inverted Pyramid, but focusing on information that is interesting rather than important.
Have your conclusion tie back to your lead.

16. GQ STUDD!
Great Quotes Strong Lead Transition/Quote formula Unique Angle Description Detail