Hybrid story forms go beyond news and features
“When you have news, report it,” advises Roy Peter Clark, Poynter Institute senior scholar. “When you have a story, tell it.”
But what if you have both?
Some stories don’t fit into the traditional boxes and triangles of the inverted pyramid news structure or the feature-style story structure. That’s where hybrid story structures come in.
Feature-news release hybrid
I’ve noticed one new structure in press releases recently. It has a feature head and an inverted pyramid tail. The beauty of this beast is that it brings the story to life at the top with a feature lead, nut graph and background section. Then, once it’s attracted the reader’s attention and established the story, it delivers the details in a hierarchical, most-important-to-least-important body.
Use it when you have a story that would benefit from a feature lead but that needs a just-the-facts-ma’am resolution.
Go Beyond the Pyramid
The inverted pyramid reduces readership, understanding, engagement — even action, according to research by the Reuters Institute and others.
If the traditional news structure doesn’t work, how should we organize our messages?Master a structure that’s been proven in the lab to outperform the traditional news format at Catch Your Readers — an online persuasive-writing workshop on Oct. 5-9.
There, you’ll learn an organizing scheme that grabs readers’ attention, keep it for the long haul and leaves a lasting impression.
Save up to $100 with our group discounts.
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