13 Chapter 10: Feature Stories
Feature Writing
Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (“Toy Story,” “WALL-E”) gave a TED Talk in 2011 about storytelling. He told the audience: “Storytelling is joke telling. It’s knowing your punchline. Your ending. Knowing that everything you’re saying, from the first sentence to the last, is leading to a singular goal and ideally confirming some truth that deepens our understandings of who we are as human beings.”
Storytelling is a crucial tool used in feature stories. Feature stories are news stories with a storytelling focus. They are still full of verified facts and information, but they often include more narrative and anecdotes and human elements. They are still objective and written in the third person.
Like news stories, feature stories need to tell the reader something new. Stanton summed it up nicely in his TED Talk:
“Make me care. Emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically. In the beginning, make a promise to your audience that this story will lead somewhere that’s worth their time.”
Feature stories are your chocolate news. They are written in the same manner as news stories with leads, nut grafs and fact-based endings. But they are often more fun to consume. They are more likely to have alternative leads, but the newsworthiness is always paramount.
Feature stories allow for more narrative writing and descriptions, but good feature writers know that their readers might still leave if the story drags. In feature stories, like with news stories, you need to be stingy with your words, sentences and paragraphs. Every word should enhance the story to keep readers engaged.
Feature Characteristics
Writing expert Roy Peter Clark delves into feature stories in a 2004 article for Poynter.
“Readers like stories, even news stories, written in ‘feature style,’ ” Clark writes. “And since the invention of the human-interest story, the feature has had the beneficial effect of expanding the universe of newspaper readers while enriching our definition of news.”
Clark goes on to list possible characteristics of a feature story:
- You can read it in a single sitting on the day it was published.
- You can read a short one in five minutes and a long one in 15 minutes.
- It is NOT a news story but can be inspired by the news.
- It has, at its heart, human interest.
- It illuminates lives lived in our time.
- It takes advantage of an expanded set of language and narrative strategies.
- It can be written and reported within the normal timeframe of journalistic enterprise.
Another Poynter expert, Butch Ward, writes about the importance of details in a feature story. He emphasizes the importance of the reporter being in the middle of the story when possible. He writes that a “keen observation allows the writer to speak with authority” and points to examples of reporters who are there to hear sirens or see children play and describe that from their own observations.
Ward also advises feature writers to carefully choose what details go into the