Rahinur Rahaman

A feature story differs from a straight news story in one respect – its intent. A news story provides information about an event, idea or situation. The feature does a bit more – it may also interpret news, add color to a story, instruct or entertain.

Structure:

• The introduction is the most important part – entice your reader, hook them in. Use drama, emotion, quotations, questions, descriptions
• The body of the article needs to keep any promises or answe r any questions raised in the introduction – try and maintain an “atmosphere” throughout the writing
• While the introduction draws the reader in, the conclusion should be written to help the reader remember the story – use a strong punchline

Some points to keep in mind:

• Focus on human interest – the feel and emotion you put into the article are critical. Don’t think about writing a “science” story – think about writing a “human interest” story.
• Be clear about why you are writing the article. Is it to inform, persuade, observe, evaluate, or evoke emotion?
• Write in the active voice. In active writing, people do things. Passive sentences often have the person doing the action at the end of the sentence or things being done “by” someone.
• Accuracy is important – you can interpret and embroider but not fudge.
• Keep your audience clearly in mind – what are their desires, what really matters to them?
• Avoid clichés (cutting edge, world beating, revolutionary ) and sentimental statements – especially at the end of your article.
• Interviews for features usually need to be in-depth and in person rather than over the phone – this enables you to add in colour and detail.
• Use anecdotes and direct quotes to tell the story – try not to use too many of your own words.
• Talk to more than one person to provide a more complete picture – but don’t just add in sources to show how much work you’ve done. Be ruthless about who you put in and who you leave out!
• Don’t rely on the computer spell-checker – especially those with a U.S. dictionary.
• Decide on the ‘tense’ of your story at the start and stick to it. Present tense usually works best.
• Avoid lengthy, complex paragraphs. Your article will appear in columns, so one or two sentences equals a paragraph.
• Ideas come from everywhere – watch, read, listen, keep up to date, take notes. Talk to people outside the field of science to find out what interests and concerns them.

Getting your feature articles published:

• Read the publication you want to write for (a surprising number of writers don’t and it shows)
• Give a proposal rather than full article
• Include good examples of your previously published work

Content is king on the internet, and the real guts of content is the written word. If you are managing a website you need readable text for your on site articles, for articles in your promotional newsletter or e-zine and for promotional articles to be published on other sites or in other e-zines. While these writing tasks can be outsourced to professionals, it is also possible for you to do it yourself if you follow a step-by-step process that is outlined in the following ten tips.

Tips 01: In the first paragraph clearly state what the article is about. In standard journalism you would tell who, what, why, when and where an event is happening. In web articles you oftentimes state a problem, such as “how to get good written materials for your website”, and then explain how the article is going to solve the problem “by showing a simple step-by-step approach to writing”.

Tips 02: Organize your material in a point-wise fashion. Before you begin writing think of the points that your article is going to cover. You may not necessarily show the points, as I am doing in this article (calling them ten tips), however, for your own outline of the article you should know what you are going to say before you begin writing. Write down these points and then make sure you include them as you begin the writing process.

Tips 03: Put the reader at ease.  You are not writing for a scientific or literary society, but to your peers on the Internet. Write in a simple style and if you introduce new terms, define them for your readers.

Tips 04: Explain your points in short paragraphs.  Short paragraphs are easier for the reader to follow. No one likes to look at a long block of solid text.  Three, four or five sentences are usually enough for one paragraph.

Tips 05: Don’t be afraid to spill all the beans! Tell your trade secrets! No, I am not crazy, the more you tell, the more the demand you will create for your goods and services. I once hesitated to write an article on “Tips for Writing Meta Tags” (http://www.a1-optimization.com/optimization-tips-2.htm) thinking, who will need my search engine optimization services if they read the article? I was wrong, the article was widely published and generated several orders for my services. If you give more information, people will understand that you really are an authority on the subject that you are speaking about.

Tips 06: Give concrete examples and personal experiences to back up your points. Tell how you faced a problem and how you solved it. Or give hypothetical examples of the California Widget Company and how its website would, for example need a title tag of “Widgets: electronic widgets from the California Widget Company”

Tips 07: Emphasize the benefits of your product or service. When it comes to selling, it is the benefits that sell, rather than the features. Sure, you are selling garden supplies, home decor, clothing, gifts and jewelry on your website. These are features. But the benefits are that people can get these items in one place without shopping around, that they can save time and money, etc. The gurus of Internet marketing, such as Ken Evoy (http://myws.sitesell.com/webpromote2.html) all say that you should constantly mention the benefits that you offer to your potential customer.

Tips 08: Give resource information to your readers. Give the addresses of websites where your readers can get more information on the subject that you are talking about. These may be your own websites or they can be other resources. In case you are worrying about losing customers, good outgoing links from your website are also helpful to your site’s page ranking and positioning in search engines.

Tips 09: Get another opinion on your article.  Show it to your friends and colleagues, and don’t worry if they criticize you, it is better that your friends find the mistakes than your clientele. Always remember, a good editor is a writer’s best friend

Tips 10: Keep your most important information near the beginning of the article and summarize what you want to say at the end.  Editors usually cut things near the end, so keep your most important points and ideas in the beginning of the article. At the very end of the article you can summarize what you set out to accomplish in your opening paragraph.

You may not win a literary prize, but if you follow the steps that I have outlined above you will be able to produce effective written content for your website and for your promotional outreach via your own newsletters and through articles published on other websites. These articles could become the key to success in your Internet endeavors.