REQUIRED FEATURE WRITING SKILLS

To become a successful feature story writer, you must be proficient in the following feature writing skills: grabbing the reader's interest, being observant and writing. about people. These areas are examined in the following text.

Grabbing Reader Interest

To attain reader interest, features may depend on prominence such as that in an event like the Cuban Missile Crisis. The personality profile would also fit here. And, in this case, the relationship between the news elements of proximity and prominence should be considered. For example, a story about one of the space shuttle crew members would be of interest almost anywhere because of the prominence of the subject. How about the CO of Agana Naval Air Station? The proximity to NAS Agana and surrounding communities might make the CO prominent enough to merit a personality sketch in the local Guamanian newspaper, but nowhere else, except perhaps, his hometown.

Consideration for the target readership, then, is important for the writer of feature articles. It soon becomes obvious that attempts to define a feature story fall short, probably because the range of material is as broad as the full range of human experience. Anything people make, do, enjoy or respond to serves as a peg on which to hang the feature story.

Feature stories stir emotions, stimulate, divert and entertain. These objectives could serve as a goal for the feature writer, but they do not tell what feature stories are. Certainly, the account of one nation's warship intercepting the missile-carrying freighter of another in international waters is capable of stirring emotions and stimulating readers of the world.

The story behind the story - the feature story - is the vehicle for unabashed revelation of the human interest element in any hard news event. The PAO's Cuban missile feature does this as it continues:

The Cuban Quarantine centers the eye of the world on the Caribbean, while the real events are charted far away in Washington and Moscow. The drama of confrontation is still very much set in scenes of ships patrolling the seas around Cuba. The lines of battle are drawn by ships every bit as powerful, many times as sophisticated, and just as serious as the battleship behemoths of former wars.

When the forces meet, as when the destroyer leader USS Norfolk (DL 1) detected the Russian merchantman Leninisky Kosomol steaming out of the south Cuban port of Casilda through the receding clouds of a tropical rainstorm, the surface action begins with the flashing light of exchanging calls.

Events followed rapidly as the radio waves emanating from the two ships pulsed messages reporting contact and requesting instructions. Agreements between governments born at United Nations sessions began to be implemented on the high seas. . . .

Being Observant

The successful and prolific feature writer develops a keen, inquisitive faculty for observation. A well-tended landscape is not just a pleasant view to the feature writer. The journalist wonders who keeps it trim and why, inquires into the benefits of conservation or erosion control and the alternatives - wildlife sanctuaries or outdoor living. And chances are, the writer can write the answers received into an interesting feature article.

The power of observation, the habit of accepting nothing at face value, of digging into unanswered questions below the surface of the event, are invaluable to the feature writer.

A prime source of ideas is the daily newspaper. News stories that appear in the newspapers record national, state and local events as they happen. They usually do not give background material or cover all aspects of a story. Yet everyday, news stories appear that open the way for a flood of feature articles.

The ability to take a bare fact from the news page and give it meaning can produce a good article, but here, as in wire service copy, the feature must reflect local interest. For example, a news story mentions a change in income tax regulations; the feature writer shows how this change will affect the reader. Thus the writer localizes the news story and gives it expanded meaning.

Military news, such as changes in regulations, pay, mission or anything affecting military readers, could also interest general readers. The alert and skillful writer can turn these bare facts, and sometimes dull items, into meaningful articles.

Writing About People

The typical military editor of a commercial daily often feels "handouts" (standard news releases) are hounding him to death. They choke his style. They keep him tied to a computer doing rewrites. He would rather be working on a feature angle or out working up an enterprising story. He greets the daily handout pile as the worst part of his job. Why? Not because handouts do not contain legitimate news. Most of them do - buried somewhere behind, in or among fancy, $10 words and reams of promotions.

Reporters say the typical military handout fails most often by the absence of names and addresses of those persons around which the story, event or action is built. They say infractions of several other basic rules of journalism also frequently draw the handout to the wastepaper basket, rather than to the printed page.

However complex and amazing a ship may be, a story that is more iron rather than flesh-and-blood sailors often sails right into the wastebasket along with the larger part of the handouts of the day.

What most media want in the way of a Navy feature is a particular individual - Seaman John B. Boatwright, 20, of 2810 Prairie St., Landlock City - performing his duties to make the vessel an efficient ship. Names, properly spelled and accompanied by ages and addresses, keep wire services and newspapers in business. Details of ships or stations are interesting to people back home, especially if those facts relate to sons, daughters, husbands or hometown acquaintances. A sparkling story about a search and rescue, for example, is a natural, both from hard news and feature standpoints - if those indispensable names, ages and addresses are included.