STRUCTURE

The basic structure of the feature story is divided into three parts: the lead, the body and the conclusion.

Lead

Any standard news or magazine-style lead maybe used to begin a feature story. It should, however, always be written in a reamer appropriate to the subject. Alight, humorous lead, for example, has no place at the beginning of a serious article designed to provoke deep and serious thought in the reader. On the other hand, a ponderous lead is no way to begin alight or humorous piece.

A simple summary lead was used to begin the following story:

A six-month renovating job on a dilapidated 70-year-old house won praise from a local real estate board for a U.S. Navy captain stationed here.

The preceding lead is adequate as a starter, but another writer used a question lead. The question lead is often used to good effect in feature story writing. Leads like these, when well-phrased, send the reader along into the body in quest of an answer to such a "way-out" question:

Ever hear of a "hurevac"?

It is a hurricane hideout. The 8,000 acres that constitute the Naval Auxiliary Air Station Meridian, Miss., are a rolling woodland, and it would seem they would be unaffected by the hurricane season hundreds of miles away from Florida. Such, however, is not the case.

Note that in feature writing, the lead often consists of more than a single paragraph Sometimes the lead runs for several paragraphs. Take the following feature lead for example:

Fifteen months ago, a young Greek Cypriot landed in New York and took a job in a Brooklyn factory devoted to the manufacture of electrical appliances.

When he landed, he could speak only a few words of English and that in a thick accent.

Today that young man is Fireman Andreas Kalivakis, serving as an electrician aboard a U.S. Navy warship. His accent is fast disappearing; his English vocabulary is excellent and he is the owner of a new certificate indicating he has passed all the tests required to prove he has the equivalent of a U.S. high school diploma.

That lead stands the test for feature story leads; it grasps the reader's interest immediately and makes the reader want to read more. A Marine Corps release excited the curiosity of the casual reader with the following lead, then added a startling transition that prepared the reader to take pleasure in completing the story:

Okinawa is far from the green hills of the United States, but an old-fashioned American-style still is in daily operation there alongside the radio section of Headquarters Company, Ninth Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division.

The still, however, doesn't produce alcoholic beverages - it produces pure, distilled water.

Often a lazy journalist - relying on the belief that sailors are naturally interested in articles concerning their food, pay and equipment - will hang a dull lead on stories about those subjects. However, professional writers will give their best to those stories, because they know these stories will be read by the greatest number of people and be of service to them.

A dramatic example of wide interest to food comes from the guided-missile destroyer USS Semmes. Annual competition for the Ney Award for the best mess afloat sparked an enterprising skipper to support wider dissemination of his ship's cooking secrets. Semmes published a cookbook of Navy recipes, cut to manageable portions, and the whole country took note.

Food editors featured the story in papers in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Boston, as well as Charleston, S.C., Dayton, Ohio, Evansville, Ind. and Norfolk and Portsmouth, Va. Also, numerous network and local radio/television stations made wide use of the feature material.

Veronica Volpe of the Pittsburgh Press wrote the following example:

For those unaware of the military usage of the word, the phrase 'the best small mess in the Navy' might have questionable connotation, least of all merit. Not so to the crew members of the USS Semmes just returned from a Mediterranean tour and now undergoing overhaul in Norfolk, Va.

The military usage of "mess" relates to its original meaning that of a group of persons who eat their meals together, as do the men of a ship's company or an Army group. . . .

An important fact to keep in mind when writing about Navy equipment and weapons is that the reader can soon lose interest in a dull story about a machine or weapon. The reader is interested in the men and women in uniform who will handle, install, maintain and operate those inanimate and intrinsically dull - pieces of hardware.

The effect of the machine on the person, and the person on the machine, must be presented in a way that emphasizes people, and the writer must make those people into rounded characters who become real in the reader's mind. In other words, the story must have human interest.

The writer of the following feature lead did just that by beginning a story in the following way:

The machine, a metal monstrosity, squatted in the center of the metal deck, circled by a knot of Navy men: a bemused young officer, three puzzled sailors and a knowing old chief.

"I know what it's supposed to do," the first sailor said, "and I know where we're supposed to bolt it down, but who's ever going to operate a Rube Goldberg puzzle like that?"

"You are, buster," the old chief said, "and . . .

Body

When you write the body of a feature story, it is important for you to avoid monotony. You do this by varying sentence length, however, long sentences must be clear and easy to understand.

Note the varied sentence length in the following feature from the Indianapolis News:

The first - and last issues of eight newspapers were published at Ft. Benjamin Harrison the other day.

But their brief life span had little relationship to the energy and interest devoted to their publication. The papers were the last journalism exercises for 70 servicemen and women, graduating with a newspaper in one hand, and a diploma from the Defense Media Institute at Ft. Harrison in the other.

From all the armed forces, staffers in the "quill and scroll" exercise got a glimpse into their military future. These military journalists will go to assignments throughout the world. Many will find jobs on more permanent newspaper staffs, using what they learned at Ft. Harrison.

Nine weeks ago, this basic military journalist class began. Since then students have spent 209 classroom hours in the Basic Journalism Department. ...

Another point to note is the use of quoted material to carry the story along. Skillfully conducted interviews with articulate experts will provide the writer with quotations. Such quotations, interspersed with expository material, help move a story along and maintain a lively spark throughout. Explanations and readily comprehensible revelations from authorities in a given field impart an air of authenticity to writing, particularly in stories about technical subjects, such as rocketry, instruments, engine improvements, jet engine overhaul and nuclear propulsion.

However he or she chooses to explain technical subjects, the writer should always remember the need to translate technical terms into lay language for the sake of the general audience. When this is not possible, the writer must define the technical terms.

When you write a feature on a technical subject, use the following points to help you plan and organize the body of your material:

Make paragraph beginnings forceful to impel the reader through the story.

Use technical terms sparingly, and include informal definitions as you go along.

Dress up difficult or dull passages with human interest items.

Quote authorities as necessary to make the reader feel the facts are authentic.

Simplify facts by the use of analogy.

Break down statistical material into figures the reader can comprehend.

Compare scientific concepts and technology to objects with which the reader is familiar.

Weave the necessary background into the story for unity and coherence.

For example, assume you are describing some microtubing used in a new guided missile. If you tell the readers it is three one-thousandths of an inch in diameter, they will have trouble visualizing it. Tell them it compares in size to a human hair and they can visualize its size immediately.

In another story, you can point out that a new jet aircraft carries more than 17,000 gallons of fuel. This is an impressive figure, but it does not mean much to the average reader. It would be more meaningful for you to tell the reader that the same amount of gasoline could power his car for the next 20 years.

Whenever possible, avoid generalizations. Use figures to backup any broad claims you may make. Do not merely say that the average sailor uses too much water aboard ship. Add force and emphasis to the statement with understandable figures. Tell the reader the average sailor drinks from two to four quarts of water a day. He uses five gallons of water daily merely to shave, brush his teeth and wash his hands. Cleaning and food preparation in the galley takes an additional five to eight gallons per crew member. In addition, he uses up to 10 gallons of water when he takes a shower. Then tell the reader why this is important: because the Navy "makes" its own water, drop by drop, by distilling it from seawater.

If pictures are not available and you have to describe a mechanical device, describe it in terms with which the reader is familiar: "The Navy's new supercavitating propeller looks like the screw part of an ordinary kitchen food grinder."

In studying feature techniques, the writer should not overlook the finest training material of all - the published work of other feature writers. When you

discover a piece in a newspaper or magazine that particularly interests you, you should read it again and analyze the devices the author used to make the work interesting, informative, entertaining or gripping. With a little adaptation and practice you can make the same techniques your own.

One thing you will probably discover is that when a story leaves you with a satisfying aftertaste, it is often because it was good enough to hold your interest to the end - and because the ending was a piece of artistic writing in itself.

Conclusion

The conclusion of all good feature stories terminates the article in a positive manner. As in the lead, the writer is limited only by the ability in composing a conclusion.

One device frequently used is to summarize the key points of the story. Another way to end a story is to present a new fact, generally a fact that highlights the importance of the subject of the article. No matter how you do it, though, the ending should leave the reader satisfied that the time spent reading the piece was time well-spent. If you provided a tantalizing lead and a well-constructed body that held the reader's interest, you owe to the story and the reader an equally well-written conclusion.

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the feature lead example about USS Norfolk intercepting the Russian missile-loaded freighter sums up the action and puts the story in a new light by using a different twist. Consider the following excerpt:

Eventually, on orders from Moscow, canvas was rolled back on all eight 70-foot missiles. In six hours, governments had been contacted, orders issued and received, proving photographs taken, and not a shot was fired.

Suddenly the meeting was news - as much so as if it had been a major naval engagement - but not a shot was fired. The dull patrol of USS Norfolk had been broken, and momentarily the endless watches became meaningful. Its mission had been accomplished.

The next day, Norfolk returned to its station on the now familiar patrol and observed a famous armistice on Veterans Day, November 1962, itself the new veteran maintaining the armistice in a new kind of war.

Not a shot had been fired. The "war" in Cuba was still cold.

A choice quote from an interview often makes a good ending for a feature story. The following example is how a Navy journalist concluded a story about a group of circuit-riding Navy dentists and technicians conducting a people-to-people dental program in Africa:

"We're glad to get out with the African people," said Nicholl (a chief dental technician). "The fact that there's an element of danger in it is overshadowed by the thanks of the people we're helping. We've never left a village or hamlet without a barrage of cheering and clapping from our patients."

The story on the new piece of machinery ended with the following paragraphs:

Sure, they had hated it to begin with, that monstrous machine, but now it was their monstrous machine. Constant association and the care they had lavished on it had made it their baby. The ugly monster had become an object of beauty to them, a delicate thing to be protected.

A passing journalist, new on board, stopped to drink in its loveliness. He looked as though he might be going to touch her. "Keep your cotton-pickin' hands off the baby," Quinlon snarled, and the other two baby-tenders curled their lips at the JO until he scuttled away.