Be sure to preserve great featuring writing too
A lot of attention has been paid to providing funding to investigative reporting, but today’s story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Promises made, promises kept, reminds us of the importance of feature writing in helping us understand the human condition.
It is a superbly written story with front page treatment in the newspaper, but when I went to the AJC.com website , I could not find a mention of it. In fact, the only way I found it was via a search of a name in the story. Weird, maybe because it is a long read — but, hey, long and engaging are not always at odds and this story about a bride, a groom, love and tragedy by Helena Oliviero is as engaging a story as you will ever read. *
Tomorrow I begin my Fall semester feature writing class at Kennesaw State University and our first task will be to read Oliviero’s story and discuss it. I am interested in discovering what our students want to learn. Will they love to emulate this style of front page newspaper feature writing or opt for what is on the home page of the AJC.com? It will break my heart if they opt for the latter.
Of course, I come to this with a prejudice. I was a magazine and feature editor for more than two decades and I know how seldom great stories like this one are produced. I do believe the iPad and other tablets will help to advance great narrative writing.
I want to quote from the late Don Murray, in The Compete Book of Feature Writing, which I conceived and edited in the early 1990s. The message remains the same today, he wrote:
Features give us depth and implication; they put people in the story; they make the reader think and care. Features are read and clipped and passed around and photocopied and are often the real reason that readers buy our product….Features used to follow the news; now they often tell the reader — and the editor — what will be the news in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.
The full Murray essay starts on page 7 of the book, which you can read for free online here. Murray was perhaps the greatest writing teacher and novice feature writers should be compelled to read the whole essay.
*(I sent an email to Oliviero asking her about why her story is not played up on the website. If she responds, I will include that as an update.)
