WRITING

WEEK 7: FEATURE WRITING

SIU CHI YUI PHILA

“© SIU CHI YUI, DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM,

2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.”

“THIS CONTENT IS COPYRIGHT PROTECTED

AND SHALL NOT BE SHARED, UPLOADED OR
DISTRIBUTED.”
GRADED ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
 Attend a mock press briefing. Ask questions.
 Write up a story and email it to me philasiu@hkbu.edu.hk

 15% of your grade

 Deadline: 4 Nov, 11.59pm

 Write your story in a Word document. (NOT PDF)

 Name of the Word doc should be your name: Chan Tai Man

 If you submit it after midnight, for example, Nov 5,

00.01am, you get 10% marks deducted.
 If you submit after Nov 5, 1am, your story will not be
accepted = zero marks
 Rubic (grading criteria) is already in Moodle
SCENARIO
 Press invitation:
 Mr Peter Chan (your teacher), chief executive of the
Hong Kong Restaurant Group, a big company with 40
Chinese restaurants in the city, will be speaking in a
press briefing at the HKBU CVA 702. Coverage is
welcome.
REVISION: NEWS WRITING KEY THINGS
TO REMEMBER
 Lead: summary of the key info of the events in 30 words
 Before you start writing: come up with a list of info that
you need to include in your article
 Take the Paul Chan example we did:

 1) Amount of the monthly subsidy: HK$5,000

 2) How many people to benefit?

 3) Eligibility

 4) How to apply?

 5) etc….

  As you write, include all these info in your story.

Check when you’ve finished writing
FEATURE VS HARD NEWS (FROM
EARLIER)
 It’s defined by writing style, not the topic.
 A feature can be a follow-up story of a hard news
robbery story: focus on that poor elderly man who had a
break-in at his flat yesterday and all his valuables were
stolen
 An interview with Li Ka-shing (What would be a hard
news and what would be the feature?)
 “Features are the news below the surface; features are the
shadow truths we don’t always recognize, but that affect us all
the same; features are the mysterious world on the other side of
the mountain and all the amazing people and places and things
that we need to know about, even if we don’ know it yet.”
 TYPES OF FEATURES

 Profile: a story about a person (life of Li Ka-shing)

 News: yellow vs blue camp? Political divide in a family:

 https://www.rthk.hk/tv/dtt31/programme/hkcc/episode/705346

 Colour: the Cathay Pacific flight attendants losing their jobs +

their feelings of the airline

 Flashback: a commemorative story (20 years after the Sichuan

earthquake)

 Trend: examines a trend that is impacting society

SAME TOPIC, DIFFERENT ANGLES

 News Story: A ferry sank in Cheung Chau today.

 Feature: A profile about an Australian couple who had

their vacation cut short when the ferry hit something and
sunk while the crew was watching TV
 SAME TOPIC, DIFFERENT APPROACH
 News Story: HK cyclist Lee Wai-sze won silver in the
Olympics

 Feature: Lee Wai-sze hated cycling when her father

introduced her to the sport at the age of 3. Little did she
know that she would fall in love with the sports when
she got older and became an Olympic champion. (note: I
made this up)
 WRITING A FEATURE
 “The most important sentence in any article is the first
one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the
second sentence, your article is dead.”

 REMEMBER IT!
FEATURE WRITING
 The lead can be longer than a hard news lead

 Objective is to engage readers and transition to main idea

 Often chooses one person, one story, one problem

 Can be the hardest part of your story to write. In many cases I

spent a whole day just thinking about the lead and rewriting it.
 Before you write a feature story, remember this: your
readers are not physically with you when you interview
this interesting person. But your writing needs to be
good enough that the readers can feel that they’re with
you at the interview, that they are at this remote
Indonesian village.
 Key? Description, description, description

 How remote is the village? How many hours of driving?

How many people live there? What were the houses built
of? What do people do there for a living? Farming?
 If I am reading your article and I don’t feel that you’ve
taken me with you on your trip, you’ve failed.
 What color is your interviewee’s car?
CASE STUDY 1
 My tips: I always start with my feature with the most
interesting thing that my best interviewee has told me

 OR: I start with a vivid description of a place, if that

place is important to the story

 See my article here from a few years ago:

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1709231
/erwianas-father-recounts-grief-day-his-daughter-came-h
ome-bruised-and
 SCMP article:
 For eight months, Rohmad Saputro would wake up in the
middle of the night, in the house he built himself with
wood and bricks, praying to Allah that his daughter,
Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, was safe in Hong Kong.
 Not a day had gone by without him thinking about his
daughter. But all he could do was pray.

 (I started the story with this, because this hit me the
most when I interviewed him. Can you imagine a man
waking up in the middle of the night for 8 months every
day hoping his daughter is safe?)
 (Describing his house, let readers understand how
simple it is)
 She had only called once in three months after she left
home in May 2013 to become a domestic helper in Hong
Kong, a bustling city 4,000 kilometres away.
 Then, on January 20 last year, at 3pm, a car stopped in front
of his house in a remote village in Ngawi city, Indonesia.
 A young Indonesian woman he did not know alighted from
the car and told Rohmad that his daughter had finally
returned – but that something had gone wrong. Erwiana had
been found, injured and fragile, at Hong Kong airport, on
her way home.
 “She said that my daughter has finally returned home, but
in a very poor condition,” the 49-year-old father recalls in a
calm voice, adding that the woman accompanied Erwiana
home.
 (chronicle the events. Shock your readers the way your
interviewees have shocked you)
CASE STUDY 2
 https://
www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/311916
5/national-security-law-tears-fears-new-life-hong-kong-e
arly
 BNO story

 About Hkers who have moved to the UK already

 We have talked to about 10 people to hear their stories

 Which interviewee has the best story to tell?

 HK banker who made HK$2 million a month was among

those who have moved to the UK
 He has been apolitical but was frustrated about HK’s
status quo
 Details, details, details…
 How many children? When did he resign from his well-paid job?
When did he arrive in UK?
 How much $ has he brought to UK?

 Description, description, description…

 What was his ride to the HK airport like? How long was the
queue at the Uk airport? How much $ has he spent in UK?
 Has he applied for jobs yet? How many jobs? How many
interviews has he had?
 Is his children going to school already?

 Choose the best direct quote!

 You need to know everything about your interviewee

 You may end up talking to your interviewee for 2 hours but can
only give him/ her 100 words. But it’s okay! In this case, choose
the best part of the interview. Make your story interesting.
THINGS TO REMEMBER
 When you write your feature lead, avoid:

 1) Stereotypes / facts (BORING!!)

 As we all know, women like to shop…

 2) You-don’t-know lead (SOME PEOPLE MUST BE FAMILIAR

WITH THE TOPIC)

 Hong Kong people are unfamiliar with Indian dramas.

 3) 2nd person leads (The feature’s not about ME, but about the
intersting people you’ve talked to)

 When you go to Victoria Harbour, you can see lots of boats…

 4) General, obvious leads: (Just boring. It’s not an essay)

 In this modern age, young people use the Internet.

 5) Quote leads (Starting a feature with a quote is

confusing. Who is this person speaking? Why does he
matter?).

 “I am so shocked when I saw him dead,” Peter Chan

recalled a week after his best friend was killed.
CHALLENGES OF WRITING A FEATURE
 Writing a hard news story probably just take an hour or
two.

 But a feature may take a few days.

 What’s so difficult? You’re not just presenting the facts,

you’re convincing your readers why this topic / this
interview is interesting.

 You need to have good English, because you will be

describing a lot. But avoid “big words” (difficult words
that can be replaced with easy words).
FOCUS ON THE INTERESTING DETAILS
THAT LEAD TO THE BIGGER PICTURE
 Gary Robinson died hungry.
 He had a taste for Church's fried chicken.

 He wanted the three-piece box for $2.19, plus tax.

 Instead he got three bullets.

 -From Miami Herald, by Edna Buchanan - story about an

ex-convict who got angry in a fast food restaurant after
being told there was no more fried chicken. He hit an
employee and fled the place. He was then shot by a
security guard.
BACK UP YOUR FEATURES WITH FACTS
 Just as you do for a hard news story.
 If you’re profiling Li Ka-shing, you need: how rich is he
now? (wealth of HK$300 billion; runs 15 companies
with 40,000 staffs....) (note: I made these info up)
IN SHORT…
 Be creative
 Description, description, description

 Take your readers with you

 Direct quote
IN-CLASS EXERCISE
 If you get to interview a 75-year-old man David Leung
who…
 Lives alone in a 80-square-feet subdivided flat

 Has been unemployed for 8 months and is really

financially struggling

 What would you ask him and how would you write this
story?
 Make use of the method I taught you last week: do a list
of key info about him before you start writing