CHAPTER 7: Feature Writing in Campus Journalism

Writing Feature Stories in Campus Journalism

1. WRITING FEATURE ARTICLES CREATIVITY MATTERS: CHAPTER 7

2. ITS CONCEPTS AND NATURE FEATURE STORY: A feature story is an interesting article that focuses on certain people, places, events, or subject matters like career, relationships, money, health, lifestyle, among others a writer is “ free as a bird” in crafting his ideas, in weaving his ideas and in presenting his ideas.

3. Feature articles are longer, more in-depth and more elaborate than hard news stories. They make use of the upright triagle style rather than the inverted triangle approach most of the time. Feature sories are lodge under the umbrella of journalism, whose foundations are facts, facts and facts. Hence, feature stories are not opinion essays or editorials and shoud not be confused with creative writing or works of fiction.

4. A feature story primarily banks on special human interest that may or may not be closely tied to a recent news event. It goes into great detail regarding concepts and ideas of specific market of interest.

5. TAKE THIS COMPARISON A feature story is like a spotlight in a concert hall. Everyone in the concert hall may become the subject. Once the spotlight strikes a member of the audience, he or she becomes distinct and eventually grabs the attention of everyone. According to Okoye(2012), a feature story is an in-depth and factual write-up on a topical issue which seeks to give comprehension information in a more captivating and relaxed style than straight news.

6. Reuters Handbook of Journalism says that feature story is “ ...an insight into a trend or an issue or personality. It enlightens the reader about that trend, issue or personality in abroad context. It uses specific examples to illustrate that trend or issue and puts them in a broad framework that allows the social, ecomics, corporate and/or political implications to shine through, whether sectoral, natonal or global”

7. A feature article, therefore, relates to so many forms and subjects. It’s forms include narrative stories, poems, essays tales, anecdotes and others. It’s subjects, on the other hand, may include love, hatred, jealousy, emotions, war, friendship, and other human forms and experiences. With its diverse form, many campus papers believe that feature page is the same with literary page. That is why there are campus papers which have a section titled as “literary/feature” page.

8. It must be clear to both beginning and developing campus papers that literary and features are NOT similar.

9. FEATURE STORIES CHARACTERISTICS OF 01 02 Variety of subject matter Variety of tones The kindling of the reader’s interest on such a topic primarily depends on the writer’s creativity on using the language. The feature writer may use variety of dynamic tone, say a creepy story, exciting narration, suspensive drama, angry letter, morbid experience and the like.

10. 03 04 Variety of form and style Feature stories may use any form and any style depending on the writer’s judicious judgement to capture easily the reader’s attention. Well-organized A feature story is actually an essay. Therefore, it follows a general format of having an introduction, body and ending.

11. 05 06 Strikes keynotes in a first sentence The secret of arousing reader’s attention is to intrigue him at the beginning. That is why feature stories need to be very striking at the first part. May or may not be timely Unlike news articles, feature stories may skip immediacy because it is up for the writer’s dexterous use of the language to make antiquated subject rise from the tomb and capture the attention of the current readers.

12. FEATURE FLOURISHES IN : 1 . 3. 4. 5. 2 . COLOR FANCY WIT AND HUMOR ANECDOTES QOUTATIONS

13. QUALITIES OF A WELL-WRITTEN FEATURE STORY Well- researched Catchy Descriptive Exciting Reflective Emotional Engaging Neutral Thorough

14. Thank you ! ELAINE PERILLO