Feature Writing

NATIONAL TRAINING OF TRAINERS ON CAMPUS JOURNALISM

DECEMBER 12, 2017
 Feature vs. News
Hard news stories move briskly
through the five W's and the H,
packing in just enough detail to give
readers a clear picture of the news.
The goal of a feature story is to
communicate the truth -- not
fiction -- in a different way than
a hard news story.

Immediacy is everything in In feature, the immediacy of the event is

hard news. secondary. It's replaced by reader
interest. Elaboration, mood, context,
detailed description, emotion and,
sometimes, humor surround bare facts.
Feature vs. News

News and feature stories are meant to complement each

other, and allow a newspaper to offer well-rounded
coverage that varies in depth and timeliness. While the
two styles share basic elements, they differ in the
treatment of an issue, depth of research, style of writing
and structure of the piece.
Structure
The news uses the inverted
pyramid structure while feature
uses the hourglass structure


Objectives

Feature articles can be said to have two aims:

INFORM and ENTERTAIN.
Ideally, a feature has elements of both and the
writer can use a variety of techniques and
devices to add “color” to the story.
Elements

human
interest
news
Common Types of Feature
• News feature
• In-depth
• Personality profile
• How-to
• Historical
Feature Writing Techniques
Figurative language helps recreate scenes or sensations.
It’s how a writer shows us tells the story. Devices include:

Simile
A stated comparison between two different things.
Examples:
The borders in Israel shift almost as often as the sands in the Judean Hills.

The suspect looks as white as a sheet

Feature Writing Techniques
Personification
Giving life-like characteristics to something lifeless.
Examples: The fog crept in on tiny cat feet.
The wind howled like a child in pain.
Feature Writing Techniques
Hyperbole
Emphasizing something by deliberately overstating or
understating it.

Examples: “I was so embarrassed I could have died.”

“I could eat a million of these”
Feature Writing Techniques
Metaphor
An implied comparison between two unlike things.

Examples: To the soldiers in his unit, Carlos walks on water.

That man will betray you. He is a snake.
Ingredients of a Feature article

•Facts
•Quotes
•Anecdotes
Writing Process
Story ideas
 Feature story ideas come from everywhere: from friends, personal
observation, conversations overheard in the canteen, etc.
 Once you have a story idea, decide exactly what focus you want to
emphasize. Your focus is the angle you want for the story.
 Remember your audience (who you're writing for) when planning your
feature.
Writing Process
Collecting the Information
Always do background research for your story. You must have a clear idea of your
subject before you set the interview.

Plan your questions

 Always collect more information than you need. It’s better than not enough.
 Capture the emotion. People want to know how your subject feels about why
he/she does something.
 Use all your senses. See, hear, smell, touch, taste. Make notes of how people
move, dress, speak, etc.
 Observe. Train yourself to notice everything.
Writing the LEAD
The LEAD has two tasks:
 To get the reader's
interest so that he or she
will want to read more.

The LEAD  To let the reader know

is the introduction of a
typical feature. what the writing is going
to be about.
Writing the LEAD
Common types of LEAD:
 Striking statement
 Question
 Contrast
 Summary
 Quotation
 Description
 Narration
LEAD CONTRAST

No Love Lost over Erap

Joseph Estrada told me he was going to be the best president this
country would ever have. He struck me as sincere and I believed him.
I supported him.

Unfortunately, he had no real sense of what is right and wrong. He

had no sense of accountability and governance.

For instance…
LEAD QUOTATION
Making It in Hong Kong
“…Ito ho ang inyong Tita Kerry na bumabati sa inyo (this is your Tita Kerry greeting you).”

Only a few Filipinos in Hong Kong haven’t heard of, or don’t know, Tita Kerry. For the last
13 years, the radio personality has been giving personal and even financial advice to listeners
of the “Philippines Tonight” show, which airs live on Friday and Saturday nights.

Kerry and co-host Michael Vincent have a captive audience that other Hong Kong radio
programmers can only dream about. Their unique brand of Pinoy talk radio attracts the
majority of the 155,000-strong Filipino community because they take the homesick overseas
workers a bit closer to home.
LEAD DESCRIPTIVE
The Bridges of Abra
No one ever goes to Abra by chance. It is not some place one passes through to reach a farther destination. Because no
place seems farther than Abra, an out-of-the-way province 10 hours from Manila, a dead end in the western side of the
Cordillera region, where mountains and hills have been ravaged by decades of logging activity and where many towns
remain isolated by the absence of roads and bridges.
The Abra River cuts through the province's rugged terrain, and the Abra River basin is the sixth largest in the Philippines.
During the wet months, the river is wild, bursting forth from the Cordillera mountains, surging toward Ilocos Sur and
spilling over into tributaries in the Abra lowlands. In the summer months, the riverbed turns into a wasteland of rock and
gravel that only the toughest four-wheel drives can hope to survive crossing.
During the times the river is flowing, one must take the motorized ferry, which is actually a platform mounted on rows of
what look like steel canoes. The ferry service runs from morning to midnight in some parts of Abra. The bigger ferries
from the capital Bangued can accommodate two vehicles at a time, a marked improvement from the bamboo rafts that in
years past braved the strong currents to carry people across the river.
The ferries are a constant reminder that bridges are sorely needed in Abra. "In the interiors, children have drowned
because of the absence even of hanging bridges," says Pura Sumangil, chairperson of the non- governmental group
Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government (CCAGG).
LEAD STRIKING SENTENCE
Tiempo Muerte
Hunger, she would have said, in response to the question you dared not ask, is a bitterness in the
belly, a grumbling in the gut, a deprivation that cannot be put in words, not by you who have never
known what it is like to suckle children from empty breasts, to watch them lifeless all day and
nearly blind at night, to put them to sleep chewing on cane, sucking on the sweetness that cannot
drive away the bitterness in the belly, that cannot quiet the grumbling in the gut.

Hunger, she said, even if you did not ask, is all around, on the haciendas and in the slums, in the
pillages and the mountains and on the coast, everywhere so palpable that no one can deny it exists.
Look, she said, at the big blank eyes of hunger that stare at you, the bloated bellies, the sores that
refuse to heal. The dank stench of unfulfilled need assaults you.
LEAD SUMMARY

Information Deficit
It used to be that wealth was defined in terms of gold, land, oil and machinery.
Today, its principal measure is information. For which corporations like CNN,
Microsoft and Time Warner that deal in "weightless goods" have become the new
lords of the global village - of a world of disappearing borders and a shrunken
time-space continuum.
LEAD QUESTION
Who to Believe?
Who to believe – Malacañang or the Philippine Daily Inquirer?

A series of reports on an impending Cabinet revamp was on the front page of the most
widely-circulated broadsheet in the country for weeks but were almost routinely
contradicted by denials from Palace officials, among them Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye
and Rigoberto Tiglao, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s spokesperson.
 LEAD NARRATION
Something in the Way He Moved Us
By the fall of 1995, the youngest Beatle had edged into his 50s and was famously weary of things like
Beatles. Still, on the eve of the multimedia reunion known as “The Beatles Anthology,” George Harrison
granted Newsweek an interview, on the condition that it be conducted by fax. A tricky way to interview
someone, it turns out. Particularly someone well known for his elusiveness and his wit. Harrison was asked,
“When you see McCartney and/or Starr these days, do you hug or shake hands?” And he faxed back, “Yes.”
But when asked if retelling the band’s history for the “Anthology” was healing or boring or neither, Harrison
became more expansive: “The upside of the Beatles was always far bigger than the downside, and it was
good to remember that. In reality, the Beatles existed apart from my Self. I am not really “Beatle George.”
Beatle George is like a suit or shirt that I once wore on occasion and until the end of my life people may see
the shirt and mistake it for me.”

Harrison died of cancer on Nov. 29 at a friend’s home in Los Angeles…

 LEAD NARRATION
Twilight of the Sea People
In one of the houses on stilts along the shore of Teheman, beyond the mangrove trees in this coastal town in Mindanao, a
mother is singing to her six-month-old daughter. But as the child is lulled to sleep, another listener is moved to tears.
Beautiful Hanang cries as she curls up on her colorful bridal mat. Her neighbor Furaydah's songs of lost love have
brought on memories of Misdal, her husband, who left months ago to join the pirates and never returned.
Just this afternoon, Hanang, all of 14, had an abortion. Although her eyes are filled with tears, she says it is all for the
best, since she would have been unable to feed her fatherless baby. "It would be a shame for her to have a child without a
father," agrees Hanang's mother. "The child will just die because we will not be able to feed it. It would just be a
problem for us later. We don't have any burial place to bury it."
Hanang, however, is unlikely to be the last in her community to make such a decision. For she is one of the Bajau, and
for many years now, these once proud people have been taking steps that have broken their own hearts and led them
farther away from what they used to be - self-reliant people of the sea.
ENDING

A feature may end

with an ironic,
humorous, sad or
summarizing • Circling back
• Looking ahead
statement to impart
• Spreading out
the total effect.
ENDING
Information Deficit

As trends show a reality far removed from the pursuit of the poverty
eradicating promise of the Internet, groups like APC are demonstrating that
technology privatization and concentration by profit-driven corporations have
gone too far. And that it's time now for global technological breakthroughs to
serve people and not just the agenda of the market economy.
ENDING
Tiempo Muerte
In The Huk Rebellion, American political scientist Benedict Kerkvliet traces peasant unrest
in Central Luzon to the breakdown of the paternalistic landlord-tenant relationships that had
always characterized farm life in Central Luzon. In the 1920s and '30s, Kerkvliet notes, a
new generation of landowners had taken over the huge rice and sugar farms in Central
Luzon. These landowners were driven primarily by the capitalist imperative of maximum
profits made necessary when the American colonizers opened up the Philippines to
competitive trade in the world market. It was the clash of new and traditional values which
fueled peasant discontent.

As Negros Occidental goes through its most difficult season, no one knows whether, on this
island stalked by hunger and death, history will be proven right. Or wrong.
ENDING
The Bridges of Abra

The bridges of Abra remain as incomplete or as decrepit as ever, reminders

of the sorry state of the province's infrastructure and the lack of foresight and
planning of Abra officials. Says Bringas: "Abra leaders should have had an
overall plan and vision so that they could determine which projects to
prioritize funding for. Had that happened, we wouldn't have bridges like
these. We could have at least one completed bridge.”
ENDING
Something in the Way He Moved Us
His life seemed like an eccentric enterprise from afar, but that’s what it was meant
to be: his life, not a Beatle’s life. In 1999, a deranged heroin addict broke into
Harrison’s Oxfordshire mansion and, it’s said, would have stabbed the singer to
death had Harrison not grabbed the point of the knife with his palm. You’d think
that nearly losing Harrison then would have prepared us for this. If only it had. “I
am devastated.” McCartney said last week. “He was a lovely guy and very brave
and had a wonderful sense of humor. He really is just my baby brother.”

It’s a bleak day for us too. Here comes the cloud. There goes the sun.
ENDING
Twilight of the Sea People
"People come to talk to us about our problems but nothing has happened," says his
neighbor, Marriam. "We still have no boats. Just listen to the song of Furaydah. If you
will understand, you will know our story and you will not talk to us anymore."

But Furayda's singing is interrupted by the distinct crack of a rifle. A child starts crying.

Marriam says to the visitors, "Don't worry. Go to sleep now. We will know tomorrow who
it is this time. It's normal here. People get killed."

Her husband quickly admonishes her, "Hush, don't frighten them. They will still have to
write our story."
Writing the body
While the lead draws people to see what the article is all about, the
subsequent paragraphs should clearly support the lead and explain the
reason why the story is important

Choose the most interesting detail

General to particular and then explain how it came to be.
Particular to general Choose an ordinary detail and
explain how it is actually the most
amazing thing.
Writing the body
Even veteran journalists make outlines when writing

Choose an ordinary detail and explain how it is

actually the most amazing thing.
Writing the feature article

Write the story!

 Use descriptive verbs and nouns
 Be specific in description. Create a detailed picture the reader can SEE.
The feeling is indescribable, surreal. There’s an ice-cold ball in
the pit of your stomach. Your mouth is dry. You wish you were
just in the middle of a bad dream. Everyone around you has a
ghastly look on their faces.

This is how it is during the first moments when you realize

that your car has been stolen. All you can mutter is, my car
was just here and now it’s gone!
Writing the feature article

Write the story!

 Use only the best quotes. The quotes must SAY or SHOW something.

“Dili kami peste!”

This is the cry of communities near banana plantations in Mindanao

who have to suffer the adverse effects of regular toxic aerial spraying
meant to kill pests in bananas.
Writing the feature article

Revise and rewrite!@*&%

Write the story, then polish it. Test your story by asking
"What is this story about?" Your lead and nu graf should
answer that question.
Titles
Mutants on Your Plate (on GMO) Staying Alive
Yaya Sisterhood (on killing of journalists)
Arabian Nights Ping’s Coup
The Arts: 100 Years of Attitude (Time The Age of Einstein
Special issue on the century) Lure of the Ring
Gloria’s Grip A Ring to Rule the Screen
Sins of the Fathers Lights Out for Enron
Recycling a Speaker (on JDV) Sins of the Fathers
Balut Goes Gourmet The Necessary Evil? (On Hitler)
The Piatco Fiasco
Tips for Feature Writing
1. Tell the story through people,
perhaps even leading with how an issue or
event affects a real person.

2. Look for the telling or

entertaining anecdote
3. Be creative. Use descriptive phrasing and
strong, action verbs, but don't overwrite.
Tips for Feature Writing
4. Be clear and punchy. If you must write a
longer sentence, follow it up with a short one.

5. Avoid trite, declarative phrases that state

the obvious or recycle well-worn sayings. Dull!

6. Select only the liveliest or most

interesting quotes. Don't stack quotes or quote
mundane information that you can paraphrase.
Tips for Feature Writing

7. Keep your focus and pace your story

8. Give the audience a reason to care.

If the first several paragraphs bore you, chances
are it will bore others, too.
Words to inspire us
The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get
it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can
always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase,
the leaping simile.
- Robert Cormier
There is always pain in good writing