FEATURE-WRITING: FEATURE ARTICLES & THE INVERTED PYRAMID STORY FORMAT
Writers cover many different kinds of stories, and they use specific frameworks for organizing their stories. Some stories are told chronologically. Other stories start in the present, and then flash back to fill in details important to understanding the story. While all the frameworks available represent good approaches, at the heart of most news articles is the "inverted pyramid."
To understand the "inverted pyramid” format you need to picture an upside-down triangle with the tip pointing downward and the broad base on the top. To write a story in inverted pyramid format, you put the most newsworthy information, the bulk of the story, at the beginning of the story and the least newsworthy information at the end. To decide what information is most news worthy you need to identify the story’s values.
Ultimately, the information you consider newsworthy depends on your values, experiences and knowledge, but some general guidelines exist.
1). The story has immediate impact on a great number of people.
2). The story is current and preferably recent.
3). The story involves a well-known person or organization.
4). The story happened somewhere nearby.
5). The story involves a disagreement between two or more people.
The story is newsworthy when it meets these characteristics. To write an inverted-pyramid story from the facts, you write a straight news lead that summarizes the most important information. A straight news lead is a single sentence paragraph, no more than 35 words, that summarizes the most newsworthy "what," "where" and "when" of the story. The following paragraphs elaborate on the different elements offered in the lead. The practical reason for the inverted pyramid format is so editors can trim the story, until the story fits the available word length, by cutting information in ascending order of importance.
The summary lead works well for a straight news story but a feature story needs to spark the readers’ imagination with a “hook.” The lead may use an opening that place the viewer into the article, or a lead that takes a twist on a common figure of speech or it may open the story with a literary reference. To be successfully the lead will reflects the readers’ values, experiences and knowledge.
Examples
IAP’S SEASON OPENER FORETELLS BOTTOM’S DREAM
By Julie Anne Phillipps, Associate Editor WestExpress
ASU West Campus’s staid intellectual repose faltered Wednesday evening as a throng of well-attired lords and ladies, meagerly clad maidens, colorful court jesters, rag-tag hags and staggering drunkards swirled through the courtyards to accept center stage for the night’s performance. << read more
FAMILIES GATHER ALONG THE COLORADO RIVER
by Julie Anne Phillipps
(Phoenix AZ -- December 8, 2003) On a clear, mild date in November, the great, great grandsons and daughters of Yuma’s steamboat pioneers sprawled across the grass on Yuma Crossing State Historic Park grounds where some of the families first lived and worked. <<< read more