Feature writing
The best rule in feature writing is to observe no
rules aside from those of basic journalistic style
and structure.
The best lead for the feature story is a natural
extension of the story.
The best lead is the lead that is relevant, grabs
the reader’s attention and fits the mood of the
story.
Writing feature leads
The following feature leads are called novelty
leads…
To have been ordered into battle to attack a group of
windmills with horse and lance would have seemed to Joe
Robinson no more a strange assignment than the one
given to him Thursday by Miss Vera Newton…
Relates a person or event to some
character or event in literature.
Napoleon had his Waterloo. George Custer had his
Little Big Horn. Fortunately, Napoleon and Custer
faced defeat only once. For Bjorn Borg, the finals of
the U.S. Tennis Open have become a stumbling block
of titanic proportions.
Relates a person or event to
some character or event in
history.
His wealth is estimated at $600 million. He controls a
handful of corporations, operating in more than 20
nations. Yet he carries his lunch to work in a brown
paper bag and wears the latest fashions from Sears
and Roebuck’s bargain basement.
Compares extremes—the big with the
little, the comedy with the tragedy, age
with youth, rich with poor—if such
comparison is applicable to the news
event.
Western High’s trash collectors have been
down in the dumps lately.
The road to Nsukka in eastern Nigeria is rutted and crumpled, the
aging asphalt torn like ragged strips of tar paper. In the midday
heat, diesel trucks hauling cassava and market women to the next
town kick up clouds of fine orange dust that lingers in the air.
Diana Ross spends most of the day lounging around her
Manhattan apartment. The windows are raised high through her
Fifth Avenue apartment. She is dressed in black short shorts and a
matching sleeveless blouse with fishnet stockings and burgundy
suede boots. Three or four bracelets jangle on her left wrist. Her
long nails are the color of pearl, nearly iridescent. She curls up in a
corner of the sofa and sips juice….
The air inside the darkened gymnasium is heavy with the heat of an
uncommonly prolonged North Carolina summer. Smoke from some
tin containers placed around the basketball court lends a touch of
mystery to the scene.
The thick smoke rolls into the intense light of floor-level arc lamps,
then up against a raft of lights hovering like a Steven Spielberg
spaceship. Out of the dark a white clad figure appears, bounding a
basketball. Michael Jordan dives for the basket….
The Beatles are back.
Awesome.
That’s the best way to describe the Rattler girls’ basketball
team, which notched its 15th consecutive win Friday night.
For sale: one elephant.
The City Park Commission is thinking about
inserting that ad in the newspaper. A
curtailed budget makes it impossible to
care for “BoBo”, a half-grown elephant
lodged in special quarters at Westdale
Park.
Whisky, whisky everywhere, but ‘nary a drop to
drink.
Such was the case at the City Police Station
yesterday when officers poured 100 gallons of
bootleg moonshine into the sewer.
Do not expect any pity from the weatherman today. He forecasts
a continuation of the bitter Arctic cold wave that has gripped this
city for a week.
Speaks directly
to the reader on
a subject of
widespread
interest or
appeal.
Midnight on the bridge…a scream…a shot…a splash…a
second shot…a third shot. This morning police recovered
the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. R.E. Murphy from the Snake
River. A bullet wound was found in the temple of each.
Lead consists of a
series of jerky,
exciting phrases,
separated by dashes
or dots, used if the
facts of the story
justify it.
It was 1965 and the Dallas Cowboys were making
good use out of an end-around play to Frank Clarke,
averaging 17 yards every time a young coach named
Tom Landry pulled it out of his expanding bag of
tricks.
One day, Clint Murchison, owner of the Cowboys,
wondered aloud in Landry’s presence how successful the
play might be if Bob Hayes rather than Clarke ran with the
ball. Hayes, after all, was the world’s fastest human.
“Tom gave a lot of mumbo-jumbo about weak and strong
side and I nodded sagely and walked away,” Murchison
told the Dallas Morning News.
A few weeks later, Landry called a reverse. Bob Hayes
got the ball.
“We lost yardage,” Landry recalled. “And I haven’t heard
from Clint since.”
The Rio Grande once flowed through here, a wide and
robust river surging between steep banks as it followed
a southward course hugging the state’s curvy profile.
No more.
Four-plus years of drought in West Texas and the
neighboring state of Chihuahua have turned the storied
river into a trickle meandering through mud and gravel
fields adorned here and there with discarded tires.
Trainer Eddie Gregson was walking 10 feet behind
his Kentucky Derby horse, Gato del Sol, when they
emerged from the quiet of the stable area at
Churchill Downs and began that long trek around the
clubhouse turn toward the saddling paddock.
There were 141,009 people packed into
the Downs last Saturday afternoon-a
warm, bright day in Louisville—and
thousands lined the clubhouse turn, a few
yelling at Gregson as the colt strode by.
“What’s the name of your horse?” Less
than one hour later, that nameless horse
stood in the champion’s ring.
You think you’ve had it bad? Consider Ron
Mullens. Once vice president of a major real
estate corporation, he is today penniless.
Once married to a beautiful model, he now
wanders the back roads of America alone, in
search of a smile and whatever odd jobs fall
his way. You think Ron Mullens is upset by
this turn of events? Not on your life.
“I gave it all up for the opportunity to see
America as it really is,” he said.