Feature article ideas / Story types/ Where do they come from?
Be one on whom nothing is lost.
-- advice from Henry James
Offbeat/The extremes
*Something that sticks out.
* Keywords to watch for: ONLY / FIRST / ONE OF THE FEW / BIGGEST
But also look for stories in the middle. Digging deeper reveals the unique qualities of something seemingly ordinary.
"There is a tendency in journalism to -- is this a word? -- exotify. To stick to the anomalous. We have an eye for the anomalous that causes us to miss what's the same... So you re-create sort of a lopsided cosmos. You create all these anomalies, when, in fact, you walk into a low-income person's house and you might notice that 90 percent of it is like your house."
- writer Katherine Boo, in an interview with Chicago Reader in 2002
Statistics Put a face on a number.
Human Emotion
Find the person behind the story and the story behind the person.
-- Donald Fry and Roy Peter Clark
Features article ideas
They are everywhere. Curiosity rules.
Friends, relatives, over-heard conversations. Eavesdropping. Grocery line. Gossip.
Often begins with a question: WHY? HOW?
Question is the start of a journey. WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE ?
Mine other media
*Daily newspapers: Briefs.
*Blogs: Notes on a life, but not the story.
*Twitter/Facebook: Real short snapshots. Harder to see the bigger picture, but then again ....
*Weeklies/penny savers
*Personal ads
Take their stories further.
*Take the Big Picture and work backwards to the particular/the person.
Things to remember:
*Is there ACTION?
* Is there ACCESS?
*Is there a BEGINNING/MIDDLE/END? Is this important or interesting? Test your ideas. Make phone calls.
*Everyone literally has a story. Give it meaning. Illustrate the universal truth. The theme. Find the story.
*Answer the question: Why am I reading this story?
Things to Avoid
"Because I Found them" profiles or stories. Just because you found them doesn't make them special.
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