How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 1

How To Write Special Feature Articles.

by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer.

PREFACE

This book is the result of twelve years' experience in teaching university students to write special feature articles for newspapers and popular magazines. By applying the methods outlined in the following pages, young men and women have been able to prepare articles that have been accepted by many newspaper and magazine editors. The success that these students have achieved leads the author to believe that others who desire to write special articles may be aided by the suggestions given in this book.

Although innumerable books on short-story writing have been published, no attempt has. .h.i.therto been made to discuss in detail the writing of special feature articles. In the absence of any generally accepted method of approach to the subject, it has been necessary to work out a systematic cla.s.sification of the various types of articles and of the different kinds of t.i.tles, beginnings, and similar details, as well as to supply names by which to identify them.

A careful a.n.a.lysis of current practice in the writing of special feature stories and popular magazine articles is the basis of the methods presented. In this a.n.a.lysis an effort has been made to show the application of the principles of composition to the writing of articles.

Examples taken from representative newspapers and magazines are freely used to ill.u.s.trate the methods discussed. To encourage students to a.n.a.lyze typical articles, the second part of the book is devoted to a collection of newspaper and magazine articles of various types, with an outline for the a.n.a.lysis of them.

Particular emphasis is placed on methods of popularizing such knowledge as is not available to the general reader. This has been done in the belief that it is important for the average person to know of the progress that is being made in every field of human endeavor, in order that he may, if possible, apply the results to his own affairs. The problem, therefore, is to show aspiring writers how to present discoveries, inventions, new methods, and every significant advance in knowledge, in an accurate and attractive form.

To train students to write articles for newspapers and popular magazines may, perhaps, be regarded by some college instructors in composition as an undertaking scarcely worth their while. They would doubtless prefer to encourage their students to write what is commonly called "literature." The fact remains, nevertheless, that the average undergraduate cannot write anything that approximates literature, whereas experience has shown that many students can write acceptable popular articles. Moreover, since the overwhelming majority of Americans read only newspapers and magazines, it is by no means an unimportant task for our universities to train writers to supply the steady demand for well-written articles. The late Walter Hines Page, founder of the _World's Work_ and former editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, presented the whole situation effectively in an article on "The Writer and the University," when he wrote:

The journeymen writers write almost all that almost all Americans read. This is a fact that we love to fool ourselves about. We talk about "literature" and we talk about "hack writers," implying that the reading that we do is of literature. The truth all the while is, we read little else than the writing of the hacks--living hacks, that is, men and women who write for pay. We may hug the notion that our life and thought are not really affected by current literature, that we read the living writers only for utilitarian reasons, and that our real intellectual life is fed by the great dead writers.

But hugging this delusion does not change the fact that the intellectual life even of most educated persons, and certainly of the ma.s.s of the population, is fed chiefly by the writers of our own time....

Every editor of a magazine, every editor of an earnest and worthy newspaper, every publisher of books, has dozens or hundreds of important tasks for which he cannot find capable men; tasks that require scholars.h.i.+p, knowledge of science, or of politics, or of industry, or of literature, along with experience in writing accurately in the language of the people.

Special feature stories and popular magazine articles const.i.tute a type of writing particularly adapted to the ability of the novice, who has developed some facility in writing, but who may not have sufficient maturity or talent to undertake successful short-story writing or other distinctly literary work. Most special articles cannot be regarded as literature. Nevertheless, they afford the young writer an opportunity to develop whatever ability he possesses. Such writing teaches him four things that are invaluable to any one who aspires to do literary work.

It trains him to observe what is going on about him, to select what will interest the average reader, to organize material effectively, and to present it attractively. If this book helps the inexperienced writer, whether he is in or out of college, to acquire these four essential qualifications for success, it will have accomplished its purpose.

For permission to reprint complete articles, the author is indebted to the editors of the _Boston Herald_, the _Christian Science Monitor_, the _Boston Evening Transcript_, the _New York Evening Post_, the _Detroit News_, the _Milwaukee Journal_, the _Kansas City Star_, the _New York Sun_, the _Providence Journal_, the _Ohio State Journal_, the _New York World_, the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, the _Independent_, the _Country Gentleman_, the _Outlook_, _McClure's Magazine_, _Everybody's Magazine_, the _Delineator_, the _Pictorial Review_, _Munsey's Magazine_, the _American Magazine_, _System_, _Farm and Fireside_, the _Woman's Home Companion_, the _Designer_, and the Newspaper Enterprise a.s.sociation.

The author is also under obligation to the many newspapers and magazines from which excerpts, t.i.tles, and other material have been quoted.

At every stage in the preparation of this book the author has had the advantage of the cooperation and a.s.sistance of his wife, Alice Haskell Bleyer.

_University of Wisconsin Madison, August, 1919_

HOW TO WRITE SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES

PART I

CHAPTER I

THE FIELD FOR SPECIAL ARTICLES

ORIGIN OF SPECIAL ARTICLES. The rise of popular magazines and of magazine sections of daily newspapers during the last thirty years has resulted in a type of writing known as the "special feature article."

Such articles, presenting interesting and timely subjects in popular form, are designed to attract a cla.s.s of readers that were not reached by the older literary periodicals. Editors of newspapers and magazines a generation ago began to realize that there was no lack of interest on the part of the general public in scientific discoveries and inventions, in significant political and social movements, in important persons and events. Magazine articles on these themes, however, had usually been written by specialists who, as a rule, did not attempt to appeal to the "man in the street," but were satisfied to reach a limited circle of well-educated readers.

To create a larger magazine-reading public, editors undertook to develop a popular form and style that would furnish information as attractively as possible. The perennial appeal of fiction gave them a suggestion for the popularization of facts. The methods of the short story, of the drama, and even of the melodrama, applied to the presentation of general information, provided a means for catching the attention of the casual reader.

Daily newspapers had already discovered the advantage of giving the day's news in a form that could be read rapidly with the maximum degree of interest by the average man and woman. Certain so-called sensational papers had gone a step further in these attempts to give added attractiveness to news and had emphasized its melodramatic aspects.

Other papers had seen the value of the "human interest" phases of the day's happenings. It was not surprising, therefore, that Sunday editors of newspapers should undertake to apply to special articles the same methods that had proved successful in the treatment of news.

The product of these efforts at popularization was the special feature article, with its story-like form, its touches of description, its "human interest," its dramatic situations, its character portrayal--all effectively used to furnish information and entertainment for that rapid reader, the "average American."

DEFINITION OF A SPECIAL ARTICLE. A special feature article may be defined as a detailed presentation of facts in an interesting form adapted to rapid reading, for the purpose of entertaining or informing the average person. It usually deals with (1) recent news that is of sufficient importance to warrant elaboration; (2) timely or seasonal topics not directly connected with news; or (3) subjects of general interest that have no immediate connection with current events.

Although frequently concerned with news, the special feature article is more than a mere news story. It aims to supplement the bare facts of the news report by giving more detailed information regarding the persons, places, and circ.u.mstances that appear in the news columns. News must be published as fast as it develops, with only enough explanatory material to make it intelligible. The special article, written with the perspective afforded by an interval of a few days or weeks, fills in the bare outlines of the hurried news sketch with the life and color that make the picture complete.

The special feature article must not be confused with the type of news story called the "feature," or "human interest," story. The latter undertakes to present minor incidents of the day's news in an entertaining form. Like the important news story, it is published immediately after the incident occurs. Its purpose is to appeal to newspaper readers by bringing out the humorous and pathetic phases of events that have little real news value. It exemplifies, therefore, merely one distinctive form of news report.

The special feature article differs from the older type of magazine article, not so much in subject as in form and style. The most marked difference lies in the fact that it supplements the recognized methods of literary and scientific exposition with the more striking devices of narrative, descriptive, and dramatic writing.

SCOPE OF FEATURE ARTICLES. The range of subjects for special articles is as wide as human knowledge and experience. Any theme is suitable that can be made interesting to a considerable number of persons. A given topic may make either a local or a general appeal. If interest in it is likely to be limited to persons in the immediate vicinity of the place with which the subject is connected, the article is best adapted to publication in a local newspaper. If the theme is one that appeals to a larger public, the article is adapted to a periodical of general circulation. Often local material has interest for persons in many other communities, and hence is suitable either for newspapers or for magazines.

Some subjects have a peculiar appeal to persons engaged in a particular occupation or devoted to a particular avocation or amus.e.m.e.nt. Special articles on these subjects of limited appeal are adapted to agricultural, trade, or other cla.s.s publications, particularly to such of these periodicals as present their material in a popular rather than a technical manner.

THE NEWSPAPER FIELD. Because of their number and their local character, daily newspapers afford a ready medium for the publication of special articles, or "special feature stories," as they are generally called in newspaper offices. Some newspapers publish these articles from day to day on the editorial page or in other parts of the paper. Many more papers have magazine sections on Sat.u.r.day or Sunday made up largely of such "stories." Some of these special sections closely resemble regular magazines in form, cover, and general make-up.

The articles published in newspapers come from three sources: (1) syndicates that furnish a number of newspapers in different cities with special articles, ill.u.s.trations, and other matter, for simultaneous publication; (2) members of the newspaper's staff; that is, reporters, correspondents, editors, or special writers employed for the purpose; (3) so-called "free-lance" writers, professional or amateur, who submit their "stories" to the editor of the magazine section.

Reporters, correspondents, and other regular members of the staff may be a.s.signed to write special feature stories, or may prepare such stories on their own initiative for submission to the editor of the magazine section. In many offices regular members of the staff are paid for special feature stories in addition to their salaries, especially when the subjects are not a.s.signed to them and when the stories are prepared in the writer's own leisure time. Other papers expect their regular staff members to furnish the paper with whatever articles they may write, as a part of the work covered by their salary. If a paper has one or more special feature writers on its staff, it may pay them a fixed salary or may employ them "on s.p.a.ce"; that is, pay them at a fixed "s.p.a.ce rate" for the number of columns that an article fills when printed.

Newspaper correspondents, who are usually paid at s.p.a.ce rates for news stories, may add to their monthly "string," or amount of s.p.a.ce, by submitting special feature articles in addition to news. They may also submit articles to other papers that do not compete with their own paper. Ordinarily a newspaper expects a correspondent to give it the opportunity of printing any special feature stories that he may write.

Free-lance writers, who are not regularly employed by newspapers or magazines as staff members, submit articles for the editor's consideration and are paid at s.p.a.ce rates. Sometimes a free lance will outline an article in a letter or in personal conference with an editor in order to get his approval before writing it, but, unless the editor knows the writer's work, he is not likely to promise to accept the completed article. To the writer there is an obvious advantage in knowing that the subject as he outlines it is or is not an acceptable one. If an editor likes the work of a free lance, he may suggest subjects for articles, or may even ask him to prepare an article on a given subject. Freelance writers, by selling their work at s.p.a.ce rates, can often make more money than they would receive as regular members of a newspaper staff.

For the amateur the newspaper offers an excellent field. First, in every city of any size there is at least one daily newspaper, and almost all these papers publish special feature stories. Second, feature articles on local topics, the material for which is right at the amateur's hand, are sought by most newspapers. Third, newspaper editors are generally less critical of form and style than are magazine editors. With some practice an inexperienced writer may acquire sufficient skill to prepare an acceptable special feature story for publication in a local paper, and even if he is paid little or nothing for it, he will gain experience from seeing his work in print.

The s.p.a.ce rate paid for feature articles is usually proportionate to the size of the city in which the newspaper is published. In small cities papers seldom pay more than $1 a column; in larger places the rate is about $3 a column; in still larger ones, $5; and in the largest, from $8 to $10. In general the column rate for special feature stories is the same as that paid for news stories.

WHAT NEWSPAPERS WANT. Since timeliness is the keynote of the newspaper, current topics, either growing out of the news of the week or antic.i.p.ating coming events, furnish the subjects for most special feature stories. The news columns from day to day provide room for only concise announcements of such news as a scientific discovery, an invention, the death of an interesting person, a report on social or industrial conditions, proposed legislation, the razing of a landmark, or the dedication of a new building. Such news often arouses the reader's curiosity to know more of the persons, places, and circ.u.mstances mentioned. In an effort to satisfy this curiosity, editors of magazine sections print special feature stories based on news.

By antic.i.p.ating approaching events, an editor is able to supply articles that are timely for a particular issue of his paper. Two cla.s.ses of subjects that he usually looks forward to in this way are: first, those concerned with local, state, and national anniversaries; and second, those growing out of seasonal occasions, such as holidays, vacations, the opening of schools and colleges, moving days, commencements, the opening of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng seasons.

The general policy of a newspaper with regard to special feature stories is the same as its policy concerning news. Both are determined by the character of its circulation. A paper that is read largely by business and professional men provides news and special articles that satisfy such readers. A paper that aims to reach the so-called ma.s.ses naturally selects news and features that will appeal to them. If a newspaper has a considerable circulation outside the city where it is published, the editors, in framing their policy, cannot afford to overlook their suburban and rural readers. The character of its readers, in a word, determines the character of a paper's special feature stories.

The newspaper is primarily local in character. A city, a state, or at most a comparatively small section of the whole country, is its particular field. Besides the news of its locality, it must, of course, give significant news of the world at large. So, too, in addition to local feature articles, it should furnish special feature stories of a broader scope. This distinctively local character of newspapers differentiates them from magazines of national circulation in the matter of acceptable subjects for special articles.

The frequency of publication of newspapers, as well as their ephemeral character, leads, in many instances, to the choice of comparatively trivial topics for some articles. Merely to give readers entertaining matter with which to occupy their leisure at the end of a day's work or on Sunday, some papers print special feature stories on topics of little or no importance, often written in a light vein. Articles with no more serious purpose than that of helping readers to while away a few spare moments are obviously better adapted to newspapers, which are read rapidly and immediately cast aside, than to periodicals.

The sensationalism that characterizes the policy of some newspapers affects alike their news columns and their magazine sections. Gossip, scandal, and crime lend themselves to melodramatic treatment as readily in special feature articles as in news stories. On the other hand, the relatively few magazines that undertake to attract readers by sensationalism, usually do so by means of short stories and serials rather than by special articles.

All newspapers, in short, use special feature stories on local topics, some papers print trivial ones, and others "play up" sensational material; whereas practically no magazine publishes articles of these types.