HOW TO BE A FEATURE WRITER?
Features are human interest stories that speak of people, places and situations. Celebrities, films, travel, music, sports, fashion, food, health, careers and such themes are the favourite hunting ground of Feature writers. Try it and you pop up with stories – News features and Timeless features that have intrinsic human interest to get updated. Features tend to be original and descriptive; original in ideas and writing skills. News stories often preclude description. Features writers can evoke imaginary stories, which would be edited out of a news story but subject to the journalistic standards of accuracy, fairness and precision. There are various Types of Feature writing which can be classified as follows:
Personality Features: It’s not everybody’s cup of tea to attain Fame and fortune. Fame and success stories are rare and conjure up the imagination of the readers who would find juicy fulfillment in them. It makes the reader dive into the hidden traits of a character with the effective newsworthiness and reality of truth. The rich and famous celebrities are a common subject that have a curiosity value.
Culture Features: Movie stars and pop singers are the role models of today that inspire the youth. Acting, gossip, mega success stories, flops, characters, comedy, tragedy etc. could be raw material for Feature writing.
Hi Tech Features: With the demand of Technical writing in the field of Computers, a lot challenge awaits for the Feature writers online as well as in the IT magazines. The leap of technology has left everyone breathless and feature possibilities are enourmous. Scopes to enhance technical writing is an endless learning and getting updated in the field of Technology.
Life Style Features: Changing fashion trends and life-styles makes an interesting reading. A passion for fashion and acquaintance with fashion moguls and a fondness for showmanship make a good fashion Feature writer. This is not a job of any Tom, Dick and Harry! All leading business magazines carry life style features which are more or less showpieces of a changing society and so, the competition is hand to hand for an exposure in writing with a flair as a Life style feature writer.
Travel Features: The Travel themes are a class apart for the adventure they hold in the writing themes. The Travel feature unfold the romance inducing the wander lust and creating a spell on readers making them fly on the seventh heaven. People and places are always exciting but the places recommended must be worth spending money, time and trouble. Travel features demand exceptional descriptive and narrative skills.
Hobby Features: People have pursued for various hobbies and a very few exceptional genre have the taste of interest in various hobbies. Stamp collecting, gardening, reading, music, photography are the common hobbies but some uncommon hobbies like cloud watching, bird watching, lizard eating, bees collecting etc. present exotic feature avenues. A hobby feature writing interests the readers that has to say about exceptional hobbies.
Concerned Features: These have the power to exposure the burning issues like the Education, poverty, corruption, drug addiction, women issues, hapless victims, etc The concerned writing calls for a debate to show the magnitude of the problem through cases, anecdotes and quotable quotes and a lot of writing stuff challenging the perspective.
Career Features: These features focus on Career guidance scaling to career peaks or career blues. Choosing the right career, getting started, aptitude and such feature writing are good breeding grounds for beginners. Stories that give insight to careers, role models, career planning, mid career crisis lead to interesting and informative feature writing especially for the people who have to decide the fate to earn their bread and butter.
Business Features: In a market driven world with day to day crisis boom, Business feature writing provides a platform to give a glimpse of the insight of the business world. Exploring ideas, opportunities, market trends, dizzy world of CEOs, Corporate ladder, alliances, mergers and various other feature writing on Business is a challenge and par excellence to rise faster than reporters and correspondents. Business feature writing requires special eye to vision the business – the expression of the art of minting money!
More on the Feature writing and one can pursue writing Event Features like the valentine day, Teacher’s day, Independence day, etc. themes. Feature writing on Health & medical issues, Sun sign writers or Numerical features like writing on the magic of numbers – astrology and numerology. Historical features can be made interesting with the perpetual spell of age old times with history, stories, unique features and more.
A 700 to 800 word limit will make an ideal newspaper feature whereas magazine features can be more elaborated and descriptive in nature with more than 15000 words! It is only required to be seen that the Beginning, middle and end part holds good in any literary exercise especially by adopting the four basic skills: a flair for good writing, an eye for the market, a talent for sound organization and writing skills.
So, Get Started, Get Going
Get UPDATED before you are OUTDATED!
