How to Write Special Feature Articles

Bleyer, Willard Grosvenor, 1873-1935Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 811K words
Chapters: 82

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.How To Write Special Feature Articles by Willard Grosvenor BleyerAuthor: Bleyer, Willard Grosvenor, 1873-1935,Language: English, Class: PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections, Release Date: Apr 26, 2005

Editor's review

This is a guide to writing feature articles by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer and one of the classic early textbooks on journalism writing. The book is built around the newspaper feature as a genre, explaining step by step how to conceive a topic, gather material, arrange the structure, and shape the language, with numerous examples and analyses; it is far more practical than abstract writing theory. Its value lies in making concrete and followable the question of how journalism and literary quality can be combined: how to find an interesting angle in everyday subjects, how to replace dry statements with detail and scene, how to handle openings and endings. For today's readers, the newspaper cases cited are dated, but the approaches to topic selection, interviewing and material gathering, and structural training have not gone out of date. It suits journalism and communication students, beginning writers, and enthusiasts hoping to improve their nonfiction writing for systematic study, and can also serve as a supplementary reference for writing courses.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Journalism and communication students and beginning reporters and editors
Writers who want to systematically learn nonfiction writing and feature techniques
Teachers of journalism writing and creative writing courses looking for reference material
Self-media content creators hoping to improve topic selection and structure

Not a good fit for

Casual readers who only want light stories and don't plan to practice writing
Readers looking for contemporary new-media writing techniques and platform operation methods
Learners who struggle with English reading and need a Chinese translation

Reading tips

Read chapter by chapter, and after each chapter write a short feature on a subject close at hand as practice.
Focus on the example analyses in the book and compare them with your own drafts to find gaps in structure and detail.
You can skip passages related to old-fashioned newspaper layout and concentrate on methods of topic selection and material gathering.
After finishing, choose a local person or event and do a complete piece of reporting and writing to test whether the framework you've learned works.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this writing textbook still applicable today?

The core methods discussed in the book—feature topic selection, interviewing and material gathering, structural arrangement, and detail description—are timeless and still applicable. Note that most examples come from old newspapers and that layout and communication contexts have changed; when reading, focus on the methods rather than copying specific formats.

Can I understand it without a journalism background?

Yes. The book is written for beginning writers, explains concepts step by step, and includes illustrative examples; it assumes no professional background. Intermediate English reading ability is enough to follow it, and old newspaper terminology can be skipped without affecting your understanding of the writing methods.

How is this book different from general writing guides?

Its focus is very clear: the newspaper feature as a genre. Compared with writing books that speak in generalities, it breaks topic selection, material gathering, structure, and language into operable steps and supports them with many examples; it is more practice-oriented and suited to reading while practicing rather than merely for inspiration.

Should I do writing exercises alongside this book?

Practice is strongly recommended. This is a textbook, and both its method explanations and example analyses point toward putting pen to paper. If you only read without writing, what you gain will stay at the level of concepts; try writing a short feature after each chapter and then revising it against the book's standards, and the results will be noticeably different.

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About the author

Bleyer, Willard Grosvenor, 1873-1935 Author

Willard Grosvenor Bleyer (1873–1935) was an early figure in American journalism education. Public information about his life is limited, and he is chiefly known through two works: How To Write Special Feature Articles and Types of News Writing. As their titles suggest, both books focus on the practical craft of journalistic writing—the former on choosing subjects, structuring, and expressing feature articles, the latter on the various forms and conventions of news writing. Bleyer's writing is practical and instructional, clear and well organized, suitable for classroom use and for self-study. His works have had some influence in news-writing training and are often regarded as representatives of early journalism writing textbooks, still offering reference for readers interested in journalistic style and the teaching of writing.