ABSTRACT
Good writing takes a lot of work. It takes strong communication skills and motivation to use them. It takes creative energy and effort. Good feature writing has its roots in this type of writing, especially the art of storytelling. Good writing also has a certain foundation on which it is built and a certain polish or finish on which it is sold to the buyer. The late E. B. White (Strunk & White, 1979) made an observation in the writer’s little bible, The Elements of Style, that is worth noting. His Cornell professor, William Strunk, once said,
The best writers sometimes disregard the rules of rhetoric. When they do so, however, the reader will usually find in the sentence some compensating merit, attained at the cost of the violation. Unless he is certain of doing as well, he will probably do best to follow the rules. (p. xvi)
Increasingly, feature writers are using the strengths of literary nonfiction. In fact, some experts have noted that a majority of feature-writing Pulitzer Prizes in the past decade have been won by individuals writing stories cast as literary nonfiction (Hart, 1995). They do this by identifying classic story elements in daily life. You can do it also. The elements are relatively simple to list: characters, use of dialogue, use of conflict and tension, and strong organization using scene construction.
