Story forms to get you thinking

Being familiar with traditional story forms makes it easier at the start of the writing process to determine the right direction and tone for our stories. It also makes the writing process faster because these formats can provide a rough road map for nearly any story. No need to reinvent the wheel!

These formats are not based on some book or theory. They are based on my 20 years in the newspaper business. They are the kinds of assignments that we, as professional writers, are called on week in and week out to write.


The list that follows came out a brainstorming session in my features class. Although this isn't a feature writing class, we use these story forms as jumping off points to help us generate content for our blogs. Blog posts can take on the forms in this list.

Think of these story forms as tools in a toolbox:

1. The Tribute Story — Like an obit, but longer and published after the news obit.

2. The Personality Profile — Like a news profile, but usually longer and not necessarily tied to a news event. It's better if they are, though.

 3. The Celebrity Profile — Distinct from a personality profile insomuch as people already know a lot about your subject, so a fresh angle is especially important. They're also hard to get sometimes.

4. The Company Profile — Distinct from personality or celebrity profiles insomuch as it focuses on a company or business or website or other endeavor.

5. The Preview, or Advancer — About an upcoming event. Should be consumer-friendly and focus on how people can participate.

6. The Review — Usually focusing on arts and culture but not necessarily. For example, product reviews.

7. The How-To Article — What it sounds like. Food stories are often written as how-to stories.

8. The List — A format that has exploded in recent years, especially online.

9. The Historical Feature — Uses news as a jumping off point to talk about the history and background of an issue, place, person, etc.

10. The Sense-of-Place Story — About a place, why it's special, unusual, historic, strange, endangered.

11. The Travel Piece — Also about a place but very consumer-oriented: how to get there, where to stay, how much it will cost.

12. The Interview Story — Usually with only one VIP, the I-recently-sat-down-with-so-and-so story, often focusing on one issue. Example: Warren Buffett predicts 2012 a sluggish year.

13. The Q&A — A compact and efficient way to present an interview. Popular with readers.

14. The First-Person Piece — Usually the approach of an essay, commentary, memory or confessional piece. Can include "I."

15. The Narrative-Journalism Story — A long-form feature that tries to reconstruct events as though you are there. Think of Paige Williams' piece about the "Possum Living" author.

16. The Color Piece — A feature about an event that isn't about the event itself but everything about it. Picture a story about a basketball game that focuses on everything but the game, such as the sights, the sounds, the fans. Also called a sights-and-sounds piece.

17. The Bright — A very short feature about something surprising, funny, weird, shocking. Also called "a talker," something people talk about at the water cooler.

18. The Trend Story — A feature that builds on a news story about a trend by trying to explain or illustrate it.

 19. The Impact Story — Will pick up on some serious issue in the news pages, like the controversy over hydraulic fracking for natural gas, and will put a human face on it by illustrating how this issue affects real people. Often on the depressing or sound-the-alarm side.

20. The Disease of the Month — A somewhat cynical label for a tried-and-true feature format about some disease, often something you've never heard of, and how it has tragic results for a person or family. Or it can be written as an inspirational story about someone overcoming the disease of the month.

21. The Ghoul Watch — OK, a very cynical label. Feature writers often are asked to prepare obituaries and/or tribute articles before someone famous has actually died, so the publication will have a head start on coverage. Sometimes, you might even run a sort of pre-tribute story when, for example, it is learned that this VIP is in deteriorating health and death might be imminent. Often takes a why-the-world-will-be-a-sorrier-place-without-him or look-at-all-the-great-things-she-did tone. Think of the Steve Jobs saturation coverage.