Beyond Breaking News
Profiles, reviews, investigative
reports, columns—the
opportunities are endless!
The World of Features
 News stories usually focus on events that are timely
and public: government, crime, disasters; they tell
you what happened.
 Feature stories often focus on issues that are less
timely, more personal: trends, relationships,
entertainment; they offer you advice, explore ideas,
make you laugh and cry.
Fashion, Food, Fitness and
Fun
 At most publications, features fall into the following
categories:
 Lifestyles: goals, relationships, jobs, fashion, fitness
 Health: dieting tips, exercise advice, medical news
 Science and Technology: environmental issues,
computers, TVs
 Entertainment: movies, concerts, art galleries, etc.
 Food: how to cook it, buy it, bake it, even grow it
 Homes and gardens: experts tell us how to dig it,
weed it, repair, rewire and redecorate
“Hard” News, “Soft” News??
 Hard News: serious, timely events like
murder. War. A fire in a nursing home.
 Soft News: Lighter, less urgent, less somber
topics, like how to buy a puppy. Cookie
recipes.
 Hard and Soft News are relative terms that
describe both the topic and treatment of a
story.
10 Popular Types of Feature
Stories
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Personality Profile
Color Story
Backgrounder
Trend Story
Reaction Piece
Flashback
How-To
Consumer Guide
Personality Profile
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Readers love reading about famous people.
Unusual people.
Heroic and idiotic people.
They want to know how newsmakers think,
act and look.
 A successful profile, then, combines quotes,
facts, and descriptions to reveal your
subject’s true nature.
Color Story
 “Color,” in this case, means flavor or
mood. It’s the type of piece you write
when you’re asked to attend an event –
a parade, a strike, a funeral, a disaster
– and convey the experience by
interviewing participants and describing
the sights and sounds.
Backgrounder
 Also called an analysis piece. Through
research and interviews, you focus on
an issue or event in the news,
explaining how it happened, why it
matters – and what comes next. It’s like
teaching a crash course on a complex
topic for readers in a hurry.
Trend Story
 This type of feature is often more engaging
than a backgrounder on a social problem.
Trend stories keep readers plugged in to the
people, places, things and ideas affecting
today’s culture – the
latest/hottest/coolest/oddest – from fads and
fashions to lifestyle and entertainment.
Reaction Piece
 When news breaks, or a dramatic issue
confronts your community, a reaction
story provides a sampling of opinions
from experts, victims, even ordinary
folks. For controversial topics, it
provides a way for key players to tell
their side of the story.
Flashback
 Commemorative stories usually run on
the anniversary of an historic event –
Sept. 11, for example, or the 100th
anniversary of City Hall – combining
facts, photos and interviews to explain
why it was important then, and why it
still matters now.
How-To
 This popular, interactive format
teachers readers how to do something:
Play poker. Buy a house. Invest
money. It often works best presented
as an easy-to-follow checklist, diagram,
or step-by-step sequence of tips.
Consumer Guide
 Readers want to know where to find
the tastiest pizza. The hottest jazz. The
cheapest shoes. And they expect you
(the instant expert) to tell them. Almost
everything we do, buy or eat can be
rated in a way that advises readers
what’s good, bad and ugly.
Generating Story Ideas
 Your publications archives
 Your competitors
 TV, magazines, newspapers, Web
sites
 News releases
 Reader suggestions
 Brainstorming
How to Tell if Your Idea is a
Good One
 Where did your idea come from?
 Is the idea original?
 Does the idea surprise you?
 Does the idea have movement to it?
 Is there a STORY there?
 Is there tension?
 Is the story true?
 Do YOU like the story?
Feature Style
 Syntax and Phrasing
 Voice and Tense
 Detail and Description
 Other Dramatic Techniques
Syntax and Phrasing
 The rules loosen up when you write feature stories.
 You can use slang or contradictions; phrase for dramatic
effect, even write sentence fragments.
 Ten seconds. Count it: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Ten seconds was roughly how
long it lasted. Nobody had a stopwatch, nothing can be
proven definitively, but that’s the consensus. The tornado
that swooped through Kansas at 6:09 p.m. April 20 took
some 10 seconds to do what it did. Ten seconds is barely
a flicker. It’s a long, deep breath, it’s no time at all. It’s an
eternity.
 Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
Voice and Tense
 News stories are written in past tense. But features are
often written in present tense, as if you’re right there,
witnessing the events, and their happening now:
 Let’s begin with his pickup truck. It’s green, it runs, its
windshield wipers don’t squeak. Those are the nicest
things you could say about it. Otherwise, it’s probably
noteworthy only for what it contains in the cab, namely a
world. Peter Bacho’s world. A quick look-around will give
you clues to everything you need to know about the man.
Immediately, you might notice his world needs
vacuuming. The ashtray overflows with cigarette butts
and ashes…
 Alex Tizon, The Seattle Times
Detail and Description
 Features attain a you-are-there immediacy by
carefully detailing people’s actions and
appearances, as done below:
 He’s in the back seat of the family Volvo,
headed to school. His mom and dad are
talking up front, but he’s not listening. He is
still waking up. His light blond hair is
uncombed as usual; a micro-pebble of sleep
dust clings to the lashes of his right eye.
Through headphones, a man is singing into his
brain.
Other Dramatic Techniques
 In journalism, everything you write
must be true.
 You can present facts in dramatic ways
 For instance, hook readers by telling
stories chronologically