There are many great journalists who are capable of producing brilliant news copy but struggle to write features.
And, vice versa, some specialist feature writers find it difficult adapting to the challenges of bashing out hard news stories.
Feature writing is an art in itself. You get the opportunity to spend more time with the person you are interviewing and the piece has room to breathe.
Consequently, there is a different tone to features compared to news articles.
They are more relaxed and there is the potential for the writer to put more of their own personality and writing style into the copy.
In my new book How To Become A Journalist, I list the eight elements I believe are essential to a good feature.
If you can include most of them you will find yourself creating interesting, engaging features and develop yourself into more of an all-round journalist.
In the book, I also set aspiring and trainee journalists two feature-writing exercises based on two sets of fictitious notes from interviews.
Readers are asked to write their own features based on the notes and I have provided sample features afterwards to compare them with.
A good way of developing your feature-writing style is to start a blog and post regular pieces on subjects which interest you.
If you want to know more about my book, which is available as a paperback or eBook, you will be able to see some sample content and also buy a copy at Amazon or at the How2Become.com website HERE.
