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How To Write Special Feature Articles by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

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HOW TO WRITE SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES

A HANDBOOK FOR REPORTERS, CORRESPONDENTS
AND FREE-LANCE WRITERS WHO DESIRE TO
CONTRIBUTE TO POPULAR MAGAZINES AND
MAGAZINE SECTIONS OF NEWSPAPERS

BY

WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER, PH.D.

_Author of "Newspaper Writing and Editing," and "Types of News Writing";
Director of the Course in Journalism in the University of Wisconsin_



BOSTON, NEW YORK, CHICAGO, SAN FRANCISCO

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.




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 hitherto 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 classification of the various types of articles and of the
different kinds of titles, beginnings, and similar details, as well as
to supply names by which to identify them.

A careful analysis of current practice in the writing of special feature
stories and popular magazine articles is the basis of the methods
presented. In this analysis 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 illustrate the methods discussed. To encourage students to
analyze 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 analysis 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 mass 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 scholarship, 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 constitute 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 _Saturday 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 Association.
The author is also under obligation to the many newspapers and magazines
from which excerpts, titles, and other material have been quoted.

At every stage in the preparation of this book the author has had the
advantage of the cooeperation and assistance of his wife, Alice Haskell
Bleyer.

_University of Wisconsin
Madison, August, 1919_




CONTENTS


PART I

I. THE FIELD FOR SPECIAL ARTICLES 3

II. PREPARATION FOR SPECIAL FEATURE WRITING 14

III. FINDING SUBJECTS AND MATERIAL 25

IV. APPEAL AND PURPOSE 39

V. TYPES OF ARTICLES 52

VI. WRITING THE ARTICLE 99

VII. HOW TO BEGIN 131

VIII. STYLE 160

IX. TITLES AND HEADLINES 170

X. PREPARING AND SELLING THE MANUSCRIPT 182

XI. PHOTOGRAPHS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 193


PART II

AN OUTLINE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES 201

TEACH CHILDREN LOVE OF ART THROUGH STORY-TELLING 204
(_Boston Herald_)

WHERE GIRLS LEARN TO WIELD SPADE AND HOE 206
(_Christian Science Monitor_)

BOYS IN SEARCH OF JOBS (_Boston Transcript_) 209

GIRLS AND A CAMP (_New York Evening Post_) 213

YOUR PORTER (_Saturday Evening Post_) 218

THE GENTLE ART OF BLOWING BOTTLES (_Independent_) 233

THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE (_New York World_) 240

THE SINGULAR STORY OF THE MOSQUITO MAN 242
(_New York Evening Post_)

A COUNTY SERVICE STATION (_Country Gentleman_) 248

GUARDING A CITY'S WATER SUPPLY (_Detroit News_) 260

THE OCCUPATION AND EXERCISE CURE (_Outlook_) 264

THE BRENNAN MONO-RAIL CAR (_McClure's Magazine_) 274

A NEW POLITICAL WEDGE (_Everybody's Magazine_) 281

THE JOB LADY (_Delineator_) 293

MARK TWAIN'S FIRST SWEETHEART (_Kansas City Star_) 299

FOUR MEN OF HUMBLE BIRTH HOLD WORLD DESTINY IN 305
THEIR HANDS (_Milwaukee Journal_)

THE CONFESSIONS OF A COLLEGE PROFESSOR'S WIFE 307
(_Saturday Evening Post_)

A PARADISE FOR A PENNY (_Boston Transcript_) 326

WANTED: A HOME ASSISTANT (_Pictorial Review_) 331

SIX YEARS OF TEA ROOMS (_New York Sun_) 336

BY PARCEL POST (_Country Gentleman_) 341

SALES WITHOUT SALESMANSHIP (_Saturday Evening Post_) 349

THE ACCIDENT THAT GAVE US WOOD-PULP PAPER 356
(_Munsey's Magazine_)

CENTENNIAL OF THE FIRST STEAMSHIP TO CROSS THE ATLANTIC 360
(_Providence Journal_)

SEARCHING FOR THE LOST ATLANTIS 364
(_Syndicate Sunday Magazine Section_)

INDEX 369





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 class 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 circumstances 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 amusement. Special
articles on these subjects of limited appeal are adapted to
agricultural, trade, or other class 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 Saturday 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, illustrations, 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
assigned 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 assigned 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 space"; that is, pay them at a fixed
"space rate" for the number of columns that an article fills when
printed.

Newspaper correspondents, who are usually paid at space rates for news
stories, may add to their monthly "string," or amount of space, 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 space 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 space 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 space 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
anticipating 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
circumstances mentioned. In an effort to satisfy this curiosity, editors
of magazine sections print special feature stories based on news.

By anticipating approaching events, an editor is able to supply articles
that are timely for a particular issue of his paper. Two classes 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 fishing 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 masses 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.

SUNDAY MAGAZINE SECTIONS. The character and scope of special articles
for the Sunday magazine section of newspapers have been well summarized
by two well-known editors of such sections. Mr. John O'Hara Cosgrove,
editor of the _New York Sunday World Magazine_, and formerly editor of
_Everybody's Magazine_, gives this as his conception of the ideal Sunday
magazine section:

The real function of the Sunday Magazine, to my thinking, is to
present the color and romance of the news, the most authoritative
opinions on the issues and events of the day, and to chronicle
promptly the developments of science as applied to daily life. In
the grind of human intercourse all manner of curious, heroic,
delightful things turn up, and for the most part, are dismissed in a
passing note. Behind every such episode are human beings and a
story, and these, if fairly and artfully explained, are the very
stuff of romance. Into every great city men are drifting daily from
the strange and remote places of the world where they have survived
perilous hazards and seen rare spectacles. Such adventures are the
treasure troves of the skilful reporter. The cross currents and
reactions that lead up to any explosion of greed or passion that we
call crime are often worth following, not only for their plots, but
as proofs of the pain and terror of transgression. Brave deeds or
heroic resistances are all too seldom presented in full length in
the news, and generously portrayed prove the nobility inherent in
every-day life.

The broad domain of the Sunday magazine editor covers all that may
be rare and curious or novel in the arts and sciences, in music and
verse, in religion and the occult, on the stage and in sport.
Achievements and controversies are ever culminating in these diverse
fields, and the men and women actors therein make admirable subjects
for his pages. Provided the editor has at his disposal skilled
writers who have the fine arts of vivid and simple exposition and of
the brief personal sketch, there is nothing of human interest that
may not be presented.

The ideal Sunday magazine, as Mr. Frederick Boyd Stevenson, Sunday
editor of the _Brooklyn Eagle_, sees it, he describes thus:

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Articles published by guardian.co.uk Books

Proceeds from JK Rowling's new book to go to east European children's charity
David V Barrett: Over and over again, critical publications have been blocked

Michael Rosen sulutes the NHS at 60 with a poem

When the clock chimed midnight last night bookshops began to sell the Harry Potter phenomenon's latest instalment, a modest collection of fairy stories that is expected to put JK Rowling at the top of the bestsellers list once again this Christmas.

Booksellers sought to mark the publication of The Tales of Beedle the Bard - a set of short stories that featured in the final Harry Potter novel - by arranging events such as children's tea parties and breakfast readings. There was an exclusive party last night in London for 500 hardcore Harry fans. JK Rowling herself will host a tea party for 220 primary school children in Edinburgh this afternoon.

The collection is a reprinting of five fairy stories that Rowling originally hand-wrote and illustrated on vellum as a gift for six close friends associated with the Potter oeuvre. All six versions were hand-bound, their covers inlaid with semi-precious stones. The stories are derived from a magical book used by Harry to finally defeat his adversary Lord Voldemort in the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which was the fastest-selling book ever.

Unlike the profits from the novels in the core Harry Potter series, the proceeds from Beedle the Bard are going to an east European children's charity chaired by Rowling, called the Children's High Level Group. Based on a European commission-backed organisation of the same name run by MEP Emma Nicholson to coordinate efforts to rehome 100,000 Romanian children kept in appalling conditions in state institutions, the charity focuses on rebuilding children's services in five east European countries.

The seven Harry Potter novels have sold 400m copies worldwide and spawned five movies along with associated merchandise, helping to build their small publishers, Bloomsbury, into a major force in the book industry. The Deathly Hallows helped Bloomsbury's children's division earn £40m profits last year. Bloomsbury hopes to sell between 7.5m and 8m copies worldwide from the first print run of Beedle the Bard, which is already translated into 27 languages, raising at least £12m for the children's charity.

About 80,000 children, many disabled or from oppressed ethnic minorities such as the Roma, live in state institutions in Romania, Moldova, Georgia, the Czech republic and Armenia, the charity's director, Georgette Mulheir, said yesterday.

Rowling said she hoped the new book would "not only be a welcome present to Harry Potter fans, but an opportunity to give these abandoned children a voice. It will encourage young people across the world to think about those who are less fortunate, and help change many young lives for the better."

The Tales of Beedle the Bard has already raised at least £1.9m for the charity after Amazon won the bidding at a Sotheby's auction for the seventh and last handwritten version of the book last year, donated by Rowling. The major booksellers are now selling the stories for £3.95, after Amazon provoked a discounting war by offering the book as a recession-busting loss leader at half the publisher's recommended price of £6.95.

The official price includes a £1.61 donation from each copy to the Rowling-backed charity, leaving booksellers in the UK effectively using their own profits to contribute a large part of the £12m expected to go to the Children's High Level Group.

Last year's Sotheby's auction has meant Rowling's handwritten versions are valued at £2m.

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