Feature Writing

A Practical Introduction

Susan Pape, Sue Featherstone

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781412908009, 9781412907996
• eBook ISBN: 9781446228005
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book provides a practical and richly informative introduction to feature writing and the broader context in which features journalists operate. As well as covering the key elements and distinctive features that constitute good feature writing, the book also offers a rich resource of real life examples, case studies and exercises.

The authors have drawn on their considerable shared experience to provide a solid and engaging grounding in the principles and practice of feature writing. The textbook will explore the possibilities of feature writing, including essential basics, such as:

• Why journalists become feature writers
• The difference between news stories and features
• What features need to contain
• How to write features
• The different types of features

 The text is intended for both those who are studying the media at degree level and those who are wishing to embark on a career in the print industry. It will be invaluable for trainee feature writers.

1

WHAT IS A FEATURE?

The joy of a feature is that we may know all the facts of a particular story, but a slightly different slant in a person’s column, for instance, may reveal a side to the story that we had never previously thought about.

D. Stephenson, How to Succeed in Newspaper Journalism (1998: 64)

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This chapter:

• examines what a feature is and how it differs from other areas of the newspaper
• considers the role of features in newspapers
• asks how features are used, where they are used and why
• looks at who writes features.

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Writing a feature for the first time can be a daunting experience. Students, more used to writing long essays, and trainee journalists, more used to writing news, might wonder where to start. They might ask: what is a feature? What makes it different from an essay or a news story? What do I need to do before I start writing? How do I write it?

As a journalism student or trainee, you might even feel that feature writing is not for you – you prefer the hard edge and excitement of news. But with time and experience, many journalists welcome the opportunity to swap the straitjacket of news story writing, with its rigid adherence to objectivity and the pyramid structure, for the creativity and variety of feature writing.

Where news journalists fulfil the role of ‘breathless messenger’, feature writers can be ‘entertaining gossips, perceptive analysts, eccentric experts, sympathetic counsellors, bitchy snoops, inspiring guides’ (Adams in Hicks 1999: 47). In short, as David Stephenson, author of the useful handbook How to Succeed in Newspaper Journalism, suggests (although whisper it within earshot of a news hack) writing news can sometimes be boring (Stephenson 1998: 61). Feature writing, on the other hand, is almost always fun.

SO, WHAT IS A FEATURE?

Ask a journalist what a feature is and he or she is likely to respond: ‘Anything that isn’t news.’ True, very few newspapers would put a feature on the front page where a lead story ought to be (although it has been known), but many writers would say that a lot of their features are news-based in that they are linked to something topical, interesting and new. In fact, Nick Morrison, features editor of the Northern Echo, says features are often used to provide background to an existing news story and to go into more depth. ‘As a news story tells you the “what” about an incident or situation, a feature can explain the “why”,’ he says. ‘Aside from going into more detail about a news story – and therefore giving more substance and weight to the paper – features can also look at human interest stories in more detail too.’

So is a feature anything that isn’t news? Certainly, an awful lot of material that can’t shelter under the news umbrella – including TV listings, horoscopes, property sales, home improvements, motoring, recipes, makeovers and fashion – does fit best on the feature pages – albeit under the guise of lifestyle, women’s and other specialist interest pages and supplements.

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David Stephenson turns to the dictionary for his definition of a feature. One entry reads: ‘An item or article appearing regularly in a newspaper,’ while a second offers: ‘A distinctive part or aspect of a landscape, building or book.’Take out the words landscape, building or book, he says, replace it with ‘issue, event or person’ and, hey presto, you have a working definition of a feature as ‘an item or article in a newspaper or magazine that brings to light a distinctive part or aspect of an issue, event or person’ (Stephenson 1998: 64).

It is a deliberately wide-ranging definition because, although features, like news, are primarily about people, they may also explore issues or events, such as the tsunami disaster that, at the end of 2004, claimed the lives of around 150,000 people in Asia and East Africa. For several weeks afterwards both the tabloid and broadsheet press carried substantial features on the nature and scale of the disaster, its impact on the environment, and the implications for the economic futures of the affected nations. Similarly, the Guardian regularly runs issue-driven features such as Felicity Lawrence’s investigation into the underworld economy, which appeared in January 2005. Note, though, that, even where a feature explores such issues or events, the focus is firmly people-orientated: how does this issue or event affect the people caught up in it?

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Features can be recognised by their length – they are longer than news stories and, typically, will be somewhere between 600 and 2,000 words – and by their greater use of fact boxes, pictures, graphics and illustrations. Perhaps, more importantly, features draw on a wider range of sources than a news story. Where a hard-pressed news hack, racing against the clock to meet today’s deadline, might expect to quote one, perhaps, at most, two sources in a piece of copy, feature writers, with (generally) longer lead-in times, have the opportunity to research more deeply, talk to more people – and quote them at much greater length. Direct and indirect sources for Felicity Lawrence’s investigative article in the Guardian on 11 January, 2005, for instance, include Polish, Afghan, Iranian and Portuguese migrant workers, personnel from three employment agencies, a chicken processing company, a trade union assistant general secretary, a trade union and government working party representative, a migrant studies research worker, the Inland Revenue, Home Office, the European Union and the Transport and General Workers’ Union (Lawrence 2005).

Despite their length, features are not wordy rambles on woolly subjects. The best have interest, focus and purpose – and they are appropriate for both the audience and the publication in which they appear. Jean Kingdon, editor of the weekly Ludlow Advertiser, runs a ‘focus’ feature each week that looks in depth at something or someone of interest to her readership. ‘As we are a community newspaper, we are very responsive to the interests and needs of our readers,’ she says. ‘We do not carry material unrelated to our immediate circulation area.’

WHAT A FEATURE WRITER NEEDS TO REMEMBER

Having thought of, or been asked to write about, a particular subject, the journalist must ask him or herself if there is enough mileage in it to sustain reader interest. It is no use writing 1,200 words of erudite prose on something that is not going to keep the reader’s attention.

Accordingly, the feature writer must focus on his or her readers and come up with a good reason or angle as to why the feature will be of interest to them. He or she also needs to be clear about the purpose of their writing. A good question to ask is: what will the readers take away from the piece?

THE ROLE OF THE FEATURE

Cynics might joke that the role of the feature writer is simply to fill the pages of a newspaper. But their sheer volume and variety means they are recognised as having a far more important job – that of entertaining, educating, informing, amusing, explaining and – not to be forgotten – giving the reader something interesting, new and, perhaps, enjoyable to read.

Ian Reeves, editor of the journalists’magazine, Press Gazette, says: ‘It’s difficult to define because there are so many different types of feature. Has it told you something you didn’t know you wanted to know or told you something you didn’t know? Was it compelling, interesting and different?’

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All writing serves one or more functions: information, entertainment, education or persuasion. Broadly, these can be explained as follows.

• Information: telling you something you didn’t know before such as in a:
  news story – breaking news
  match report – and the final score was …
  review – is it worth it?
  personal column – I really think you should know this …
  profile – did (s)he really say that?
• Entertainment: a good read such as in a:
  news story – oh, my goodness!!!
  match report – sounds like it was a great game …
  review – wish I’d been there …
  personal column – you don’t say …
  profile – I don’t believe it!!!
• Education: this will improve your quality of life as in a:
  news story – new evidence that smoking is really bad for you
  match report – so, that’s how they won 16–0 …
  review – well, I never knew that was the meaning of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’…
  personal column – perhaps, if I do that I can …
  profile – oh, now I understand where (s)he is coming from …
• Persuasion: this is how you should think, feel and so on, such as in a:
  news story – that’s terrible, it shouldn’t happen again …
  match report – (s)he’s so inspiring …
  review – OK, I’ll give it a try …
  personal column – yes, I get your point …
  profile – perhaps, he’s got a point about …

As a writer, it is important to be clear at the outset what you are trying to achieve. This will be determined by the following.

• Content: It is inappropriate to be (gratuitously) entertaining about a natural disaster that kills thousands of people and injures many more, but at some level all writing should hold the attention of the reader – and to that extent should always be entertaining.
• Genre: is this a news story or a feature? Prince Charles thinking we’re all getting too big for our boots becomes a Guardian front page news story ‘Know your place: Tribunal exposes Prince’s Edwardian attitudes’ (18 November 2004) and a G2 composite feature on royal gaffes ‘Charles’ world’ (19 November 2004). The news story serves the information function; the G2 feature provides information, entertainment and, possibly, persuasion. (If you weren’t a Republican before, you might be now.)

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Most importantly of all, readers like features and often develop an affinity for individual feature writers – particularly personal columnists – and follow them loyally. Commercially, this is extremely valuable. As former Independent editor Andrew Marr (now a BBC broadcaster and presenter) observes in a Guardian extract from his book, My Trade: A short history of British journalism: ‘Bylines are often the only signal that gold, rather than dross, lies below’ (Marr 2004).

QUANTITY AND QUALITY

Producing a tightly written 150-word news story that is succinct and simple to read is often a lot easier than producing a 1,000-word feature on a subject that is completely new to you and for which you have had little time for research. But that is no excuse to let your writing slip. As we said before, you must sustain interest throughout the text and for this you’ll need lively, well-considered writing. Sid Langley, features editor at the Birmingham Post,says that the way a feature is written will govern whether it interests him or not – and whether or not he will use it in the paper: ‘Quality of writing is so important. If you can write entertainingly and well, it will grab me and I will read the whole feature – even if the subject matter is not something I am interested in’. Ian Reeves agrees:

Evidence of good research is important; a feature should have interesting facts in it, but you could be the best researcher in the world yet still not write a decent feature. You have to have the writing skills as well and, sadly, not everyone has research and writing skills. Ninety per cent of it is down to the writing.

Writing is important too for Susie Weldon, women’s editor of the Western Daily Press: ‘I’m lookin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Thanks and acknowledgements
• 1 What is a feature?
• 2 Sourcing the feature
• 3 Interviewing
• 4 What features should contain
• 5 The difference between news and features
• 6 Language and structure
• 7 Different types of features
• 8 Writing personal columns
• 9 Writing reviews
• 10 Specialist features
• 11 Commissioning features
• 12 Why feature writers become feature writers
• Bibliography
• Index