Feature Writing

DEFINITION

The feature is extended form of the news story, which gives more depth and breadth to events that occur.

Okoye define feature as an in-depth and factual write up on a topical issue which seeks to give comprehensive information in a more captivating and relaxed style than straight news.

Okenwa (1990) observed that while a news writer will normally stick to facts and report them as a matter of fact, without embellishment or comments of any kind, the feature writer offers more than bare facts, background them, entertain comments…and interpret them. He uses anecdotes, descriptions, and humor. He uses more factual and imaginative language.. It is worth mentioning here that feature writing is not fictitious story writing. Rather, it is a balanced report reflecting all the angles of the story.

A feature story aims to educate and entertain the readers. It reflects the best in a writer. It can be personal, colorful, and opinionated, but without deviating from the facts. It may be longer and in-depth compared to a straightforward news story. It carries feelings and impressions. It should be able to grab the reader’s attention instantly and hold that attention.

Feature stories are created to inform, entertain, persuade, or simply satisfy the audience’s curiosity about a certain topic. It may provide additional information that may not be found on the news story, give an opinion about a trending topic, or offer an entertaining personal perspective on a certain topic.

TYPES OF FEATURES

• Personality profiles: A personality profile is written to bring an audience closer to a person in or out of the news. Interviews and observations, as well as creative writing, are used to paint a vivid picture of the person. The CBC’s recent profile of Pierre Elliot Trudeau is a classic example of the genre and makes use of archival film footage, interviews, testimonials, and fair degree of editorializing by the voice-over commentary.

• Human interest stories: A human interest story is written to show a subject’s oddity or its practical, emotional, or entertainment value.

• Trend stories: A trend story examines people, things or organizations that are having an impact on society. Trend stories are popular because people are excited to read or hear about the latest fads.

• In-depth stories: Through extensive research and interviews, in-depth stories provide a detailed account well beyond a basic news story or feature.

• Backgrounders: A backgrounder–also called an analysis piec–adds meaning to current issues in the news by explaining them further. These articles bring an audience up-to-date, explaining how this country, this organization, this person happens to be where it is now.

• Reviews: Writing great reviews is a real art, one that many have tried but only a few have mastered. Read great critics and you’ll notice something they all have in common – strong opinions. But newbies who aren’t quite confident in their opinions often write wishy-washy reviews.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A FEATURE

• Imperishable 

This is a very important feature of feature articles. This simply means that a feature article does not perish, unlike the story which becomes stale the next day. This is because there is usually a time-frame on the news story which makes the story lose value if not published within the time-frame. The feature story is not attached to such time-frames since it is usually carefully selected and created at the feature writer’s convenience.

• Cannot be scooped 

This means that someone’s particular feature article cannot be published in its originality before hand, by another writer. This is simply because the choice of topics for future stories is simply is the prerogative of the feature writer.

• Can be created from mundane ideas or issues 

There is actually no rigidity in the selection of a feature topic. Hence, any topic or issue can be featured. In the past, certain topics or issues were considered too trivial to be published. However, with the development of the press, ideas and topics which previously would have been considered inconsequential became the toast of feature writer. In other words, the choice of topics for features includes both the serious and trivial.

• Give in-depth information on topical issues 

Feature articles give in depth information to the audience about a particular topic. This is because the writer must have investigated the topic before presenting the different angles to the audience. Hence, features are written under very relaxed atmosphere. This gives room for adequate survey of facts and information on the topic to be “featurised”.

• Selection of topic is rigorous

Feature articles are rigorously selected because the feature writer has to present something (topic) that is usually captivating; colourfully and stylishly presented in a unique manner.

• Delayed and more complete

Feature stories are not as timely as straight news because time is required for the indepth investigation of the topic. Hence, delay in feature is pardonable, moreso, when it is justified with a balanced report. Features are complete because they give all the sides to the story and present a rounded perspective of it, thereby satisfying the curiosity built up by the skeletal nature of straight news.

• Fleshy and Colourful 

The feature writer adds more flesh to the straight news to make it a feature story. However, “fleshiness” does not mean undue padding and stuffing of the material. The language of the feature is supposed to be colourful, having been written in figurative and in flowery constructions. This colourful language appeals to the sensory aspects of readers. This kind of language is quite different from the formal language of straight news. It is really more picturesque, informal and humorous. Hence, it is more attractive to read. Suggestively, good feature articles are read for pleasure. So it is a major challenge of feature writers to make their stories pleasurable to the reader.

• Stylish 

This means a unique or peculiar way of doing something which is equally attractive in nature. Stylistic therefore, permits the feature writer to use his own peculiar approach to writing which could be in form of his own word-coinages, romantic expressions, captivating images or use of language. Style differentiates one writer from another and it professionally allows the writer to shift his mode of writing. The stylistic language of feature entrenches the readers and thus distracts the attention of the readers from the bulkiness of the piece which naturally, would have made the story boring.

STEPS IN FEATURE WRITING

• Brainstorming

• Finding the angle

• Creating an outline

• Researching

• Going through the facts to produce an enticing story

• Creating a punch line to leave an impression

TIPS ON WRITING THE FEATURE STORY

• Creating the title/headline
• Hook the reader
• Highlight the main idea of the story
• Use important keywords

SPECIFIC VARIATIONS OF FEATURE STORIES

•  Process “how-to-do-it” feature: This kind of feature is educational because it teaches readers how to do things. In a simple playful and funny manner, the audience is informed and educated on certain issues. A lot of readers want to learn certain skills e.g. how to cook certain dishes, keep a garden, drive cars etc. A good example of this type of feature is “Ten ways to drive a car”.

• Personal Experience Stories: This type of feature is based on the personal experience or eye witness account of the reporter. A reporter on duty may suddenly find himself in an unexpected circumstance; e.g. beaten up by a mob. He may want to narrate his ordeal to the public. He may want to recreate this gory experience. Some newspapers have columns called the “Reporters Notebook” where journalists recount their personal experiences in form of features. Personal experience stories could also be a form of features based on participant observation.
• Personality Profiles: This  is a kind of human interest feature. It is actually a close look at the personality of a prominent person in the society. It involves achievers i.e., people who have made name and are newsworthy. The space allotted to a person’s profile depends on his prominence. For instance, an obituary profile could take the whole of a paper’s front page, depending on the person’s prominence.
• General profiles could be written also on organizations and places. After reading a profile, one feels that one has got an intimate knowledge about the subject matter discussed.
• Commemorative Features: These are features written to commemorate important events in a nation or in the world. For instance, a beautiful piece can be written on the Nigeria’s Armed Forces Remembrance Day. Equally, a beautiful feature can be done on the commemoration of the 60 years of World War II.
• Historical, Hobbyist and Odd Occupation: Feature stories can equally be written on: Historical events such as; “the Ikeja Cantoment Bomb blast or the Nigeria civil war.
• Hobby: A person’s unique hobby could be quite newsworthy and so be featurised.
• Odd Occupation: Odd Occupations such as “reverse driving” can make very interesting feature stories. All these depend on the feature writer’s ability to embellish and present the stylistically. Participatory feature: This is quite similar to experience feature. It involves a recount of one’s experience on an event he participated in.
• The Capsule feature or features: This is a short snappy, compact feature about people in the news. Some magazines call it newsmakers e.g. Newsweek. Some call it “in the news” as in Newswatch. The focus is usually on celebrities and newsworthy people making news in light-hearted manner.
• The Travelogue: This is an account of a trip to a place of interest. It informs the readers about life in other places and draws lessons by comparing life in those places with the situation at home. Travelogues are written by journalists who travel to far places in the course of official duties or holidays. Examples of travelogues are profiles of these places visited by the journalist blended with anecdotes of his experiences while there.
• The Exposee or Alarmer: Is the type of feature that exposes or identifies something wrong in the society. Examples are: Certificate Racketeering in Nigerian Universities, Female Genital mutilation (FGM), Advanced Fee Fraud (419), Child-Trafficking, Brain -Drain To obtain authentic information for this kind of features, Okoye (1998), recommends the following:- Participant observation Find a participant who is ready to “spill all the beans” Use records of tribunals and/or investigative panels.
• Human Interest Features: This is the type of features that shed light on issues in that area of general interest to people. Essentially, the features are about human beings. So, they quickly appeal to the emotions of the readers by stimulating and captivating the readers to put them into the character’s position. Features on children and old people are very effective world- wide because people sympathize with these two categories of people since they are considered helpless.
• Seasonal Features: Are those features that are tied to the calendar. They deal with different seasons such as Easter, Christmas, Ramadan, Valentine, Children’s day, Worker’s day Independence etc. These are regular features and so, have to be very entertaining. Examples are:- “A Devotion to Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee Independence”
• Specialized Features: These are features that focus on special areas such as: Science, Farming, Leisure Traveling, Botany etc. Example: A feature on the use of bamboo for furniture and crafts.

SOURCES OF FEATURE STORIES

These are some of the ways in which you could get feature story ideas:

• Through your editor
• From writing off the news/spin offs/follow ups.
• Odd occupations angle
• Good listener and avid reader
• Sociological approach
• Topical or controversial issues
• Diaries and calendars
• Cable satellite stations
• Internet
• Inspiration
• Interviews

FUNCTIONS OF FEATURES

From the on-going, it is clear that features and straight news play complementary roles. While the straight news informs the audience about the occurrences of the day, the feature helps the readers to understand better what took place. There are various other functions of features which include:

• They summarize the important news of the week. For instance, on Sunday, 22nd October 2005, Channels TV broke the sad news of the death of the first lady- Mrs. Stella Obasanjo. Later in the week up to 2 months afterwards, features were written on her tragic death giving further information on the cause, date and circumstances surrounding her death, as well as the glamorous life she lived.
• They break the boredom of the formal and rigid nature of straight news. Because features are written in a more relaxed atmosphere, they are more detailed and so provide enough information for those who read for pleasure. So, features can be substituted for novels. After all, the only difference between novels and features is that while novels are fiction, features are factual.
• They educate, inform and entertain. In this way, they perform the basic functions of communication to mankind.
• Features enrich the hard (straight) news and they beautify the newspaper or magazines that use them. The pictures, illustrate, charts, diagrams etc. used to embellish the features stories enhance the entire make up of the newspaper and magazines. When a hard news story breaks–for example, the sinking of a ferry in the Greek islands–it should be reported with a hard news lead. Soft leads and stories are more appropriate when a major news event is not being reported for the first time.
• Feature writing is a crucial part of the news papering business especially in this age when cable transmissions are discouraging a lot of people from reading newspapers. The broadcast media, especially the television, is capitalizing on its strength of immediacy, impact, price and credibility. This means that you can get the information live, immediately it happens and this makes an impact on you especially if it comes with vivid and colorful pictures. The credibility is also not in doubt because it becomes a matter of “what you see is what it is”.
• Features are not meant to deliver the news firsthand. They do contain elements of news, but their main function is to humanize, to add colour, to educate, to entertain, to illuminate. They often recap major news that was reported in a previous news cycle. Features often:

    «Profile people who make the news

    «Explain events that move or shape the news

    «Analyze what is happening in the world, nation or community

    «Teach an audience how to do something

    «Suggest better ways to live

    «Examine trends

 

WHAT MAKES A FEATURE WORK?

"Easy" writing makes for easy reading. That means short sentences, simple words, active verbs, personal words and transitions to keep the article moving forward, interest-building devices, and a "kicker" that ends the feature with some punch.

Short sentences

For today's mass audiences, news stories averaging between 15 and 20 words per sentence are easy reading. Sentences longer than 30 words may be hard to understand.

Short paragraphs

Keep paragraphs short. And vary them — from one word to five average sentences. Remember, a 100-word paragraph looks mighty long in a narrow newspaper column. Editors don't like them. Neither do readers.

Easy words 

Use short, simple words in place of longer, multi-syllable words with the same meaning. When a technical or difficult word must be used, explain it as simply as possible. 

Personal words 

Words like "you," "we," a person's name, direct quote, etc., give your copy more human interest. Admittedly, this kind of personalization is more often used in "feature" rather than in "hard news" stories. But it is still a good technique for holding reader interest. 

Active verbs 

Action verbs keep a story moving and grab the reader more than "to be" verbs that show little action. 

Transitions are used to add to, illustrate or extend a point. They usually begin with words like "and," "furthermore," "also," "or," "nor," "moreover," "along with," etc. 

They summarize: "at last," "so," "finally," "all in all," etc. 

They link cause and effect: "as a result," "that produced," "consequently," etc. 

They refer back: "they," "those," "these," "that," "few," "who," "whom," "except for," etc. 

They restrict and qualify: "provided," "but," "however," "in case," "unless," "only if," etc.

• Interest building 

Personalize the people you are writing about and what they are doing; provide quotes, human interest. 

• "Kicker" 

While the lead or grabber at the beginning gets the reader into a story, the kicker at the end of a feature should have a punch line that helps the reader remember the story. 

• Think of the whole story.  

When approaching a new story, look beyond the newsworthy item that led you there. It’s easy to be distracted by what’s happening on the surface. But think about all that might have led to that moment. What might seem to you like a boring ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new business may really be the culmination of a lifelong dream for the owner. 

• Listen … to everyone. 

When reporting, don’t just listen for people to confirm what you already think the story is. Seek to be surprised. Probe into people’s lives and listen to the small details. Let them jabber away. If the tension is not obvious from the start, it often shows itself through an offhand comment or some seemingly trivial fact. Uncovering those means talking not just to the big players in the story, but to everyone you can.

• Find the scenes. 

Once you’ve established the tension that drives the story, it’s your job to explore the telling moments and turning points in the story, bringing them to life for your reader. Stories are told through scenes, and it’s through scenes that tension emerges, grows and is resolved. 

• Ask the most important question. 

Everyone has a story. Everyone wonders what will happen next in their lives and how it all will turn out. In fiction, editors often ask, “What’s at stake?” That’s the question that drives the best factual reporting, too. Think: What will happen or would have happened if? Ask people about it. Ask what they think about and what they’re worried about. Often, those answers—and not all the surface facts so many reporters are obsessed with—are your stories. They are the core your facts stick to, your editor’s reason to take interest in acquiring your piece, your reader’s reason to care.

• Development 

Once you’ve convinced your readers to hang around, they’re ready for the rest of the story. The best devices to keep them interested are all those scenes you found in your reporting. Scenes, however, can still drive the way the story unfolds. Look for the different milestones in your own story, the highs and lows the key players go through that define their journeys. Let those moments, those key scenes, drive the story forward, and your reader along with it.

• Payoff 

Stories have endings. They’re the answer to that what if question implied by the tension.

BASIC STRUCTURE:

CREATING THE INTRODUCTION

Set the scene. Bring it to life. You might start with a question, a narrative or a description, but however you do it, you need to seduce readers into your story via the first paragraph. A quick tip here is that it’s often a good idea to write the opening paragraph last of all, once you’ve written everything else. Or write it and then go back to it when you’ve finished the rest of the feature. A lot of the time, the first paragraph that we write will turn out to be drivel, and either we’ll look at it in horror and cut it ourselves, or the editor will do it for us. Your first or in most cases, second, paragraph will ideally explain the feature in a nutshell, so that the reader knows what they are reading about and why they are reading it. 

• The introduction sets the tone of the whole story 
• It can have an unusual statement to keep the reader’s attention 
• It can invite the reader to take a stand especially if it is a controversial topic 
• It should have the important background information 
• It should intensify the appeal to keep the reader hooked

CREATING THE BODY 

Having got your readers hooked at the start, keep them reading. This is where your writer’s skill in creating a logically progressed narrative comes into play. Each paragraph will move your story along, and add to the reader’s information. Embed facts into scenes, so that something new is revealed with each paragraph. 

If you have interviewed people, let them reveal their parts of the story via direct quotes – you are telling a story with characters in it so let them speak. Their voices will bring your feature story to life. 

Don’t info-dump. Space out your information so that everything necessary is included without disrupting your narrative flow. 

If you haven’t enough space to get in all the facts, cut your prose rather than sacrifice information that will add to a reader’s knowledge.

• It should have additional facts and statistics 
• It can have opinions from authorities 
• It can have sound bites from interviews
• It can have personal opinions 
• It can be visual using photos, diagrams, and graphs

PUTTING A CONCLUSION

Create a satisfactory ending so that the reader understands that the story has reached a conclusion. Don’t spoil a good feature by letting it tail off, or make it bottom-heavy by cramming in information that should have been woven in higher up. Be careful too not to sound pat or – heaven forbid – press-releasey. Feature writing is about real life stories, and real life is complex, and does not always wrap up into a neat conclusion. One-liners can be a nice way to end a piece, or if you have it, a good quote that underlines everything that you’ve been saying throughout the feature. 

•     The conclusion leaves the impression to reader 
•     It should remind the reader what the story is about 
•     It can suggest a course of action and/or change of attitude or views