Feature Writing (for Journalism)
UCC Single Module Certificate Course
This course will teach students how to write compelling feature articles, substantive non-fiction stories that look to a corner of the news and illuminate it, often in human terms.
Like news, features are built from facts. Nothing in them is made up or embellished. In features, these facts are imbedded in or interwoven with scenes and small stories that show rather than simply tell the information that is conveyed. Features are grounded in time, in place and in characters who inhabit both.
Feature stories are framed by the specific experiences of those who drive the news or those who are affected by it. They are less formal and dispassionate in their structure and delivery.
This class will foster a workshop environment in which students can build appreciation and skill sets for this journalistic craft.
At the end of this course, students will be able to:
- To explore the qualities of storytelling and how they differ from news.
- To build a vocabulary of storytelling.
- To apply that vocabulary to critiquing the work of top-flight journalists.
- To introduce a writing process that carries a story from concept to publication.
- To introduce tools for finding and framing interesting features.
- To sharpen skills at focusing stories along a single, clearly articulated theme.
- To evaluate the importance of backgrounding in establishing the context, focus and sources of soundly reported stories.
- To analyze the connection between strong information and strong writing.
- To evaluate the varied types of such information in feature writing.
- To introduce and practice skills of interviewing for story as well as fact.
- To explore different models and devices for structuring stories.
