Feature Writing Training

About this Lesson

Heather Lamb
Assistant Professor,
Magazine Journalism,
Missouri School of Journalism,
University of Missouri

Feature writing calls upon some of the same skills used in news writing, especially reporting and interviewing. But to create an engaging feature, writers must build upon those skills by utilizing storytelling methods often associated with fiction writing, such as description, character and dialogue. There’s a reason why this works. A well-told story invites in readers. Through the story, readers see the experiences of another person or place, a process that creates emotion, meaning and understanding. In other words, these storytelling techniques help writers construct memorable features that make an impact.

What you will learn

After watching this video, you will understand several storytelling techniques for feature writing, including:

The importance of detail
Finding a theme or focus
Establishing setting and character
Using dialogue and action
Using descriptive language, similes and metaphors

How the lesson works

First of all, this is an asynchronous lesson unit, which means no live events are scheduled for this lesson. You can complete learning activities at your own pace whenever is convenient for you. Despite the asynchronous nature, the learning tasks are organized to help you succeed.

To be successful in this unit, please complete the following tasks:

• Watch the lecture.
• Take the quiz to test your own understanding. This will help you to strengthen the concepts you just learned.
• Optional: Due to the amount of content to be covered in a single unit, we encourage you read these additional resources. Some of the quiz questions might come from the readings in Additional Resources section.