Writing Feature Stories

A systematic and user-friendly approach to journalistic feature story writing for journalism students, professionals, freelancers, and beginners is provided in this guide. Writers will learn to move beyond conventional news stories and embrace their creativity to create compelling features. Generating fresh ideas, gathering factual information, sifting through raw material, choosing the best angle, and working with editors are all explored. Discussion questions and exercises reinforce the ideas presented in each chapter. Pop culture examples and recently published articles are used to make concepts memorable and easily accessible.

Table of Contents

Introduction1 What Exactly Is A Feature Story?2 The Variety of Feature Stories3 Crossing the Bridge from Media Consumer to Media Practitioner4 Generating Fresh Story Ideas5 Spend Half an Hour Planning Now, Save Half a day LaterThis man raped two little girls The story behind the story: Pamela Bone6 Gathering the Raw Material7 The Subtle and Slippery Art of Interviewing8 Seeing Things For YourselfThe Passion of John Marsden The story behind the story: David Brearley9 Finding the Right Structure for the Story10 Leads, Closes and that Big Lump in the Middle11 WordcraftPol Pot Park The story behind the story: Kimina Lyall12 Editing Your Story and Working With Editors13 Looking Ahead to Literary JournalismHope Lives Here The story behind the story: Garry LinnellAppendixGlossaryNotesSuggestions for further readingIndex