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How To Write Special Feature Articles by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

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Browning comes from an old-stock Mormon family of Ogden, Utah. As a
young man he was a great hunter, going off into the woods for a
month or six weeks at a time, with only his gun for company. He was
only 24 when he worked out his ideas for a gun carrying a magazine
full of cartridges, which could be fired rapidly in succession. He
pounded out the parts for his first rapid-fire gun with hammer and
cold chisel.

Since that time, pump and "trombone" shotguns, automatic pistols,
rapid-fire rifles produced by the biggest firearms manufacturers in
the country have been Browning's products.

The United States army pistol is a Browning invention.

A Browning pistol manufactured by the Fabrique Nationale of Belgium
was made the standard equipment for the armies of Belgium, Russia,
Spain, Italy and Serbia.

On completion of the one-millionth pistol by the Fabrique Nationale,
King Albert of Belgium knighted the modest inventor, so he is now,
officially, "Sir" John Browning.

Browning is tall, slender, slightly stooped, 62, bald except for a
rim of gray hair, and wears a closely clipped gray moustache. His
face is marked by a network of fine lines.

Although Browning will not talk of himself or of his career as an
inventor, he can't help talking when the conversation is turned on
guns.

"I always think of a gun as something that is made primarily to
shoot," he says. "The best gun is the simplest gun. When you begin
loading a gun up with a lot of fancy contraptions and 'safety
devices,' you are only inviting trouble. You complicate the
mechanism and make that many more places for dirt and grit to clog
the action.

"You can make a gun so 'safe' that it won't shoot."

Of Browning's new guns it is not, of course, permissible to give any
details. One, however, is a light rapid-fire gun, weighing only 15
pounds, which can be fired from the shoulder like the ordinary
rifle. Each magazine carries 20 rounds and the empty magazine can be
detached and another substituted by pressing a button.

The heavier gun is a belt-fed machine, capable of firing 600 shots a
minute. Although it is water-cooled, it weighs, water jacket and
all, only 28 pounds. For airplane work, where the firing is in
bursts and the speed of the machine helps cool the gun, the jacket
is discarded and the gun weighs only 20 pounds.

Both guns are counted upon as valuable additions to the equipment of
our overseas forces.

THE NARRATIVE IN THE THIRD PERSON. Although the interview, the personal
experience article, and the confession story are largely narrative, they
are always told in the first person, whereas the term "narrative
article" as used in this classification is applied only to a narrative
in the third person. In this respect it is more like the short story. As
in the short story so in the narrative article, description of persons,
places, and objects involved serves to heighten the effect.

Narrative methods may be employed to present any
group of facts that can be arranged in chronological order.
A process, for example, may be explained by showing a man
or a number of men engaged in the work involved, and by
giving each step in the process as though it were an incident
in a story. The story of an invention or a discovery may
be told from the inception of the idea to its realization. A
political situation may be explained by relating the events
that led up to it. The workings of some institution, such
as an employment office or a juvenile court, may be made
clear by telling just what takes place in it on a typical
occasion. Historical and biographical material can best be
presented in narrative form.

Suspense, rapid action, exciting adventure, vivid description,
conversation, and all the other devices of the short story may be
introduced into narrative articles to increase the interest and
strengthen the impression. Whenever, therefore, material can be
given a narrative form it is very desirable to do so. A writer,
however, must guard against exaggeration and the use of fictitious
details.

EXAMPLES OF THE NARRATIVE ARTICLE. How narration with
descriptive touches and conversation may be effectively
used to explain a new institution like the community
kitchen, or the methods of recruiting employed in the
army, is shown in the two articles below. The first was
taken from the _New York World_, and the second from the
_Outlook_.

(1)

NOW THE PUBLIC KITCHEN

BY MARIE COOLIDGE RASK

The Community Kitchen Menu

+--------------------------------------------------+
| Vegetable soup pint, 3c |
| Beef stew half pint, 4c |
| Baked beans half pint, 3c |
| Two frankfurters, one potato and cup full of |
| boiled cabbage all for 7c |
| Rice pudding, 3c. Stewed peaches 3c |
| Coffee or cocoa with milk half pint,3c |
+--------------------------------------------------+


"My mother wants three cents' worth of vegetable soup."

"And mine wants enough beef stew for three of us."

Two battered tin pails were handed up by small, grimy fingers. Two
eager little faces were upturned toward the top of the bright green
counter which loomed before them. Two pairs of roguish eyes smiled
back at the woman who reached over the counter and took the pails.

"The beef stew will be twelve cents," she said. "It is four cents
for each half pint, you know."

"I know," answered the youth. "My mother says when she has to buy
the meat and all and cook it and put a quarter in the gas meter,
it's cheaper to get it here. My father got his breakfast here, too,
and it only cost him five cents."

"And was he pleased?" asked the woman, carefully lowering the filled
pail to the outstretched little hand.

"You bet," chuckled the lad, as he turned and followed the little
procession down the length of the room and out through the door on
the opposite side.

The woman was Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.

The boy was the son of a 'longshoreman living on "Death Avenue," in
close proximity to the newly established People's Kitchen, situated
on the southeast corner of Tenth Avenue and West Twenty-seventh
Street, New York.

So it is here at last--the much talked of, long hoped for, community
kitchen.

Within three days after its doors had been opened to the public more
than 1,100 persons had availed themselves of its benefits. Within
three years, it is promised, the community kitchen will have become
national in character. Its possibilities for development are
limitless.

Way was blazed for the pioneer kitchen by Edward F. Brown, executive
secretary of the New York school lunch committee.

The active power behind the cauldrons of soup, cabbage and
frankfurters, beans and rice pudding is vested in Mrs. James A.
Burden, jr., and Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, jr.

The evolution of the community kitchen is going to be of interest to
every housewife and to every wage earner in all classes of society.

First of all, let it be distinctly understood that the kitchen as
inaugurated is not a charity. It is social and philanthropic in
character, and it will ultimately reduce the cost of living by
almost 50 per cent. This much has been demonstrated already to the
extent that the Tenth Avenue kitchen has not only paid expenses, but
has so overrun its confines that plans are in preparation for the
establishment of other and larger kitchens in rapid succession.

The object is to give to the purchaser the maximum quantity of
highest grade food, properly cooked, at minimum cost. This cost
includes rent, light, heat, power, interest on investment,
depreciation, cost of food materials, labor and supervision. The
principle is that of barter and sale on an equitable business basis.

The project as now formulated is to establish for immediate use a
small group of public kitchens having one central depot. This depot
will be in constant operation throughout the twenty-four hours. Here
the food will be prepared and distributed to the smaller kitchens
where, by means of steam tables, it can be kept hot and dispensed.
The character of the food to be supplied each district will be
chosen with regard to what the population is accustomed to, that
which is simple and wholesome, which contains bulk, can be prepared
at minimum cost, can be conveniently dispensed and easily carried
away.

Opposite a large school building, in a small room that had been at
one time a saloon, the kitchen of the century was fitted up and
formally opened to the public.

Three long green tables with green painted benches beside them
encircle the room on two sides. Their use was manifest the second
day after the kitchen was opened.

At 4 o'clock in the morning, from various tenement homes near by,
sturdy 'longshoremen and laborers might have been seen plodding
silently from their respective homes, careful not to disturb their
wives and families, and heading straight for the new kitchen on the
corner. From trains running along "Death Avenue" came blackened
trainmen after their night's work. They, too, stopped at the corner
kitchen. By the time the attendant arrived to unlock the doors forty
men were in line waiting for breakfast.

Ten minutes later the three tables were fully occupied.

"Bread, cereal and coffee for five cents!" exclaimed one of the men,
pushing the empty tray from him, after draining the last drop of
coffee in his mug. "This kitchen's all right."

Noon came. The children from the school building trooped in.

"My mamma works in a factory," said one. "I used to get some cakes
at a bakery at noontime. Gee! There's raisins in this rice puddin',
ain't there?" He carried the saucerful of pudding over to the table.
"Only three cents," he whispered to the little girl beside him. "You
better get some, too. That'll leave you two cents for a cup of
cocoa."

"Ain't it a cinch!" exclaimed the little girl.

Behind the counter the women who had made these things possible
smiled happily and dished out pudding, beans and soup with generous
impartiality. The daughter of Mrs. Vanderbilt appeared.

"I'm hungry, mother," she cried. "I'll pay for my lunch."

"You'll have to serve yourself," was the rejoinder of the busy woman
with the tin pail in her hand. "There's a tray at the end of the
counter--but don't get in the way."

So rich and poor lunched together.

"Oh, but I'm tired!" exclaimed a woman, who, satchel in hand,
entered, late in the afternoon, "It's hard to go home and cook
after canvassing all day. Will you mind if I eat supper here?"

Then the women and children poured in with pails and dishes and
pans.

"We're getting used to it now," said one. "It's just like a store,
you know, and it saves us a lot of work--"

"And expense! My land!" cried another. "Why, my man has only been
working half time, and the pennies count when you've got children to
feed and clothe. When I go to work by the day it's little that's
cooked at home. Now--" She presented a dish as the line moved along.
"Beef stew for four," she ordered, "and coffee in this pitcher,
here."


(2)

GATHERING IN THE RAW RECRUIT

BY KINGSLEY MOSES

MEN WANTED FOR THE UNITED STATES ARMY

A tall, gaunt farmer boy with a very dirty face and huge gnarled
hands stood open-mouthed before the brilliant poster displayed
before the small-town recruiting office. In his rather dull mind he
pictured himself as he would look, straight and dignified, in the
khaki uniform, perhaps even with the three stripes of the sergeant
on his arm.

"Fifteen dollars a month," he thought to himself, "and board and
clothes and lodgings and doctor's bills. Why, that's more than I'm
gettin' now on the farm! I'd see the world; I might even get to
learn a regular trade." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I
ain't gettin' nowhere now, that's sure," he concluded, and slowly
climbed the stairs.

This boy had not come to his decision in a moment. His untrained but
thoroughly honest mind worked slowly. He had been pondering the
opportunities of army life for many weeks. The idea had come to him
by chance, he thought.

Over a month ago he had been plowing the lower forty of Old Man
Huggins's farm. The road to the mountains lay along one side of the
field, and as the boy turned and started to plow his furrow toward
the road he noticed that a motor cycle had stopped just beyond the
fence. "Broke down," the boy commented to himself, as he saw the
tan-clad rider dismounting. Over the mule's huge back he watched as
he drew nearer. "Why, the rider was in uniform; he must be a
soldier!"

Sure enough, when the fence was reached the boy saw that the
stranger was dressed in the regulation khaki of Uncle Sam, with the
U.S. in block letters at the vent of the collar and two stripes on
the left sleeve.

"Broke down?" the boy queried, dropping his plow-handles.

The corporal grunted and continued to potter with the machine.

"You in the army?" the boy continued, leaning on the fence.

"You bet!" assented the soldier. Then, looking up and taking in the
big, raw-boned physique of the youngster, "Ever think of joinin'?"

"Can't say's I did."

"Got any friends in the army?"

"Nope."

"Fine life." The motor cycle was attracting little of the recruiting
officer's attention now, for he was a recruiting officer, and
engaged in one of the most practical phases of his work.

"Them soldiers have a pretty easy life, don't they?" Evidently the
boy was becoming interested.

The recruiting officer laid down his tools, pulled out a pipe, and
sat down comfortably under a small sycamore tree at the roadside.

"Not so very easy," he replied, "but interesting and exciting." He
paused for a minute to scrutinize the prospective recruit more
closely. To his experienced eye the boy appeared desirable. Slouchy,
dirty, and lazy-looking, perhaps; but there were nevertheless good
muscles and a strong body under those ragged overalls. The corporal
launched into his story.

For twenty minutes the boy listened open-mouthed to the stories of
post life, where baseball, football, and boxing divided the time
with drilling; of mess-halls where a fellow could eat all he wanted
to, free; of good-fellowship and fraternal pride in the
organization; of the pleasant evenings in the amusement rooms in
quarters. And then of the life of the big world, of which the boy
had only dreamed; of the Western plains, of Texas, the snowy ridges
of the great Rockies, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, the
Philippines, Hawaii, the strange glamour of the tropics, the great
wildernesses of the frozen North.

"It seems 'most like as I'd like to join," was the timid venture.

"What's your name?"

"Steve Bishop."

"All right, Steve, come in and see me the next time you're in town,"
said the corporal, rising. "We'll talk it over."

And, mounting his motor cycle, he was gone down the road in a whirl
of red dust. Nor did the farmer boy think to wonder at the sudden
recovery of the apparently stalled machine.

"Missionary work," explains the corporal. "We never beg 'em to join;
but we do sort of give 'em the idea. Like joinin' the Masons, you
know," he winked, giving me the grip.

So it happened that Steve Bishop mounted the stairs that day,
resolved to join the army if they would take him.

In the small, bare, but immaculately clean room at the head of the
stairs he found his friend the corporal banging away at a
typewriter. "How are you, Steve? Glad to see you," was the welcome.
"Sit down a minute, and we'll talk."

The soldier finished his page, lit his pipe again, and leisurely
swung round in his chair.

"Think you'll like to soldier with us?" he said.

Unconsciously the boy appreciated the compliment; it was flattering
to be considered on a basis of equality with this clean-cut, rugged
man of the wide world.

"I reckon so," he replied, almost timidly.

"Well, how old are you, Steve?"

"Twenty-one." The corporal nodded approval. That was all right,
then; no tedious formality of securing signed permission from parent
or guardian was necessary.

Then began a string of personal questions as to previous employment,
education, details of physical condition, moral record (for the army
will have no ex-jailbirds), etc., and finally the question, "Why do
you want to join?"

"They don't know why I ask that," says the corporal, "but I have a
mighty good reason. From the way a boy answers I can decide which
branch of the service he ought to be connected with. If he wants to
be a soldier just for travel and adventure, I advise the infantry or
the cavalry; but if he seriously wants to learn and study, I
recommend him to the coast artillery or the engineers."

Then comes the physical examination, a vigorous but not exacting
course of sprouts designed to find out if the applicant is capable
of violent exertion and to discover any minor weaknesses; an
examination of eyes, ears, teeth, and nose; and, finally, a cursory
scrutiny for functional disorders.

"I'll take you, Steve," the corporal finally says. "In about a week
we'll send you to the barracks."

"But what am I goin' to do till then? I ain't got a cent."

"Don't worry about that. You'll eat and sleep at Mrs.
Barrows's,"--naming a good, clean boarding-house in the town, the
owner of which has a yearly contract with the Government to take
care of just such embryo recruits; "in the daytime you can hang
around town, and the police won't bother you if you behave yourself.
If they call you for loafin' tell them you're waitin' to get into
the army."

In a week the district recruiting officer, a young lieutenant, drops
in on his regular circuit. The men who have been accepted by the
non-commissioned officer are put through their paces again, and so
expert is the corporal in judging good material that none of Steve's
group of eight are rejected.

"All right," says the corporal when the lieutenant has gone; "here's
your tickets to the training station at Columbus, Ohio, and
twenty-eight cents apiece for coffee on the way. In these boxes
you'll find four big, healthy lunches for each one of you. That'll
keep you until you get to Columbus."

One of the new recruits is given charge of the form ticket issued by
the railway expressly for the Government; is told that when
meal-time comes he can get off the train with the others and for
fifty cents buy a big pail of hot coffee for the bunch at the
station lunch-room. Then the corporal takes them all down to the
train, tells them briefly but plainly what is expected in the way of
conduct from a soldier, and winds up with the admonition: "And,
boys, remember this first of all; the first duty of a soldier is
this: do what you're told to do, do it without question, and _do it
quick_. Good-bye."

In twenty-four hours Steve and his companions are at the training
station, have taken the oath of allegiance, and are safely and well
on their way to full membership in the family of Uncle Sam.




CHAPTER VI

WRITING THE ARTICLE


VALUE OF A PLAN. Just as a builder would hesitate to erect a house
without a carefully worked-out plan, so a writer should be loath to
begin an article before he has outlined it fully. In planning a
building, an architect considers how large a house his client desires,
how many rooms he must provide, how the space available may best be
apportioned among the rooms, and what relation the rooms are to bear to
one another. In outlining an article, likewise, a writer needs to
determine how long it must be, what material it should include, how much
space should be devoted to each part, and how the parts should be
arranged. Time spent in thus planning an article is time well spent.

Outlining the subject fully involves thinking out the article from
beginning to end. The value of each item of the material gathered must
be carefully weighed; its relation to the whole subject and to every
part must be considered. The arrangement of the parts is of even greater
importance, because much of the effectiveness of the presentation will
depend upon a logical development of the thought. In the last analysis,
good writing means clear thinking, and at no stage in the preparation of
an article is clear thinking more necessary than in the planning of it.

Amateurs sometimes insist that it is easier to write without an outline
than with one. It undoubtedly does take less time to dash off a special
feature story than it does to think out all of the details and then
write it. In nine cases out of ten, however, when a writer attempts to
work out an article as he goes along, trusting that his ideas will
arrange themselves, the result is far from a clear, logical,
well-organized presentation of his subject. The common disinclination to
make an outline is usually based on the difficulty that most persons
experience in deliberately thinking about a subject in all its various
aspects, and in getting down in logical order the results of such
thought. Unwillingness to outline a subject generally means
unwillingness to think.

THE LENGTH OF AN ARTICLE. The length of an article is determined by two
considerations: the scope of the subject, and the policy of the
publication for which it is intended. A large subject cannot be
adequately treated in a brief space, nor can an important theme be
disposed of satisfactorily in a few hundred words. The length of an
article, in general, should be proportionate to the size and the
importance of the subject.

The deciding factor, however, in fixing the length of an article is the
policy of the periodical for which it is designed. One popular
publication may print articles from 4000 to 6000 words, while another
fixes the limit at 1000 words. It would be quite as bad judgment to
prepare a 1000-word article for the former, as it would be to send one
of 5000 words to the latter. Periodicals also fix certain limits for
articles to be printed in particular departments. One monthly magazine,
for instance, has a department of personality sketches which range from
800 to 1200 words in length, while the other articles in this periodical
contain from 2000 to 4000 words.

The practice of printing a column or two of reading matter on most of
the advertising pages influences the length of articles in many
magazines. To obtain an attractive make-up, the editors allow only a
page or two of each special article, short story, or serial to appear in
the first part of the magazine, relegating the remainder to the
advertising pages. Articles must, therefore, be long enough to fill a
page or two in the first part of the periodical and several columns on
the pages of advertising. Some magazines use short articles, or
"fillers," to furnish the necessary reading matter on these advertising
pages.

Newspapers of the usual size, with from 1000 to 1200 words in a column,
have greater flexibility than magazines in the matter of make-up, and
can, therefore, use special feature stories of various lengths. The
arrangement of advertisements, even in the magazine sections, does not
affect the length of articles. The only way to determine exactly the
requirements of different newspapers and magazines is to count the words
in typical articles in various departments.

SELECTION AND PROPORTION. After deciding on the length of his article,
the writer should consider what main points he will be able to develop
in the allotted space. His choice will be guided by his purpose in
writing the article. "Is this point essential to the accomplishment of
my aim?" is the test he should apply. Whatever is non-essential must be
abandoned, no matter how attractive it may be. Having determined upon
the essential topics, he next proceeds to estimate their relative value
for the development of his theme, so that he may give to each one the
space and the prominence that are proportionate to its importance.

ARRANGEMENT OF MATERIAL. The order in which to present the main topics
requires thoughtful study. A logical development of a subject by which
the reader is led, step by step, from the first sentence to the last in
the easiest and most natural way, is the ideal arrangement. An article
should march right along from beginning to end, without digressing or
marking time. The straight line, in writing as in drawing, is the
shortest distance between two points.

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