Diversify your content with varied story types

Copyright – Amanda F. C. Sturgill

TYPES OF FEATURES

GOT SMALL, ACTIONABLE TIPS?

ROUND UP

• Either 20 tips for whatever (challenge is organizing the items)

• Or

• 10 different experts say…(you make it seem like they are talking, though they are not)



START SOMEPLACE INTERESTING?

HISTORICAL

• Write about a person, place or event from your history

• Must interest your current audience for some reason

• Focus and angle very important

• Bring out human drama


INSPIRATIONAL

• Uplift the reader in some way…how this made me better

• What I learned - first person treatment is common

• Profile common

• Person overcoming adversity is common


HUMOR

• Must be funny

• To your audience

• Can be humorous versions of other types of articles…then called satire


ESSAY OR PERSONAL OPINION

Not your opinion, but intended to make the readers form an opinion

Needs•Facts•Logical thought process•Why you discarded other conclusions


EXPOSÉ

Based on investigative reporting

Facts must be surprising

•Things you didn’t know about…•Corruption exposed•Pretense

Has large number of well-cited and used sources


SERVICE ARTICLE

• Logical explanation of how something works (works well with technology, health, business)

• More engaging when framed as things that happened to a person

• Tells reader how or why


PROFILE

• Lets readers feel like an insider with a person/brand

• Person/brand from their perspective

• Person/brand from perspective of people who know them

• Background about person/brand


HOW TO

Introduces what you are trying to do

Tells what hardware and software you need to do it

Reader should finish being able to do it


OBSERVATION AND DETAIL

Setting

• Where• What does it look like• What does it sound like• What does it smell like

• What happened• What were people doing?• What was the background action?• How were people reacting?• How about the non-central characters?

Marketing

Diversify your content with varied story types