Northern Trust goes beyond the pyramid
How do you organize a compelling feature?
Model this piece, which Loring Leifer wrote for Northern Funds’ marketing magazine, Northern Update.… Read the full article
Story structure
Sensus goes to the science museum
Use the feature structure for emailed invitations
When I teach the feature-style story structure, communicators nod. It seems reasonable that readers would prefer concrete, creative stories to a hierarchical blurtation of facts.… Read the full article
‘From Tina Turner to Taylor Swift’
Feature structure brings tedious topics to life
When Ian Jones needed to craft a — yawn! — diversity story for employees at Columbia Gas of Virginia, his first instinct was to go with a fact pack.… Read the full article
Opioid crisis goes beyond the inverted pyramid
WCB-Alberta uses feature structure to discuss addiction
I love it when my clients send me before-and-after pieces after I present a writing workshop.
For one thing, it’s gratifying to see that people’s writing actually improves after I visit!… Read the full article
Doctor’s orders: Make it a feature release
Physician association finds a cure for the pyramid
Too many communicators married the inverted pyramid when they were 19, have made a lot of triangular babies and have remained monogamous for all these years.… Read the full article
This release hits home
Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston nails PR features
It was a good story: More than 1,000 New Englanders would soon have safe, decent, affordable places to live, thanks to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston’s Affordable Housing Program.… Read the full article
Feature-style story form easy as 1-2-3
Strathcona County masters ‘stack of boxes’ structure
Here’s the good news: You already know how to organize your copy.
Just think back to what your third-grade English teacher taught you.… Read the full article
Stroke of editing: feature structure
Ann audaciously takes on Jill Bolte Taylor’s bestseller
Jodie Foster is not planning to play me in the Sony Pictures movie of my life. Ron Howard will not direct the major motion picture version of my New York Times bestselling book.… Read the full article
Tough nut to crack
Put your story into a nutshell in the nut graph
If I came to your house and told you to grab your things and follow me, how far would you go?… Read the full article
Avoid ‘the pig in the snake’
Write a nut graph that doesn’t slow the story’s flow
Don’t let your nut graph become the pig in the snake, counsels Jacqui Banaszynski:
“I like the nut graph,” says the Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism and visiting faculty member of The Poynter Institute.… Read the full article