Top tips for writing feature articles
If you've been given the opportunity to write a feature article for a newspaper, magazine or website, you have two choices: pay a professional to write it for you or have a go at it yourself.
If you have decided to write the article yourself but are not really sure where to start, don't panic! Our top tips for writing feature articles should help you understand the difference between writing a feature article and writing a press release and give you the confidence to write your own feature.
What is a feature article?
What distinguishes a feature article from a press release is its purpose. Where a press release is written simply to inform, a feature is written to both inform and entertain. A feature allows you to explore a topic in more depth, in a more creative manner and with a less conventional style.
The news story you create when writing a press release provides information about an event, issue or idea. A feature article takes that event, issue or idea and enriches it, adding both depth and character to the story.
Every feature should have a beginning, a middle and an end
Your feature should start with a strong introduction that will grab your readers' attention and leave them hungry for more. Don’t be afraid to use humour or emotion to draw your readers in. You may even want to pose a provocative question that your audience will want to know the answer to.
The main body of your feature article should answer the questions posed in your introduction or address in detail the issue or idea you put forward. It's easy at this point to lose the 'pace' of your article, so be extra vigilant when you write this section to ensure you maintain the speed and tone you set at the beginning. Otherwise you could lose your readers' attention.
Just as you need a strong introduction to draw your readers in, you need a powerful conclusion to help your audience remember the story you’ve told them. End just as you began – by making an impact.
Tips and tricks for great features
* Use anecdotes and direct quotes to add variety to your feature
* Pick a tense and stick to it! If you start off in the past tense, don't switch to the present tense half way through
* Be active! By this, we mean write using the active voice rather than the passive voice as it is more dynamic and has more of an impact
* Don't forget about your readers as you write. If you lose sight of your audience, your audience will lose interest in you
* Use clichés sparingly - most people find them irritating!
* There's more than one way to tell a story! Don't restrict yourself to words, but rather think how you can tell parts of your story in pictures, illustrations and graphs
* Once you have a draft of your feature article, leave it alone for a while. Putting some distance (and time) between you and your article will help you to assess whether everything you have written is important – particularly useful if you've been given a word count that you've wildly exceeded!
* Proofread your finished article to weed out any mistakes and errors. If possible, get someone else to check it over for you, too.
We hope you have found our top tips for writing a feature article helpful but if you have reached the end and decided the DIY feature article isn't for you, give us a call to see if we may be able to help you.
