ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the building blocks of good features, such as the creative anecdotal leads, back-circling endings and nut-graphs, as well as the "hard science" parts, such as explanatory blocks. Apart from news backgrounders, there are a number of specialist features, such as science, health and education features. Features come in many shapes and sizes. Every good story needs interviews, but some feature stories are actually condensed interviews. In its simplest form, an interview-based feature is a sequence of questions and answers; such interviews are sometimes called questions and answers. In fact, magazine features can be subdivided into news-accompanying, specialist and interview-based features. Columns are also a type of feature, and they are often based on topical events. Science column authors often single out topical issues such as new scientific discoveries. These authors often have acquired some level of expertise in the area they are writing about.
