A type of feature is never going to be news but to be a success it needs what we call a news peg - something that links it to the news and gives it an anchor. For example if a storm is in the news you could do a consumer review feature on the top 5 ways to ride out a storm and so on.
- Confessional Interview - this would be where you interview someone who has something to confess about their private lives which causes the reader to relate to a personal experience.
- Consumer Reviews - this is usually pegged to entertainment and so on, so the top 5 or top 10 of something.
- Pictures / Fashion - pictures are key in 'features' or rather magazines because they need to be visually striking and reel people in, for example the front page of a magazine has to do this job.
- Feature Interview - this is to find out different opinions.
- Documentaries - adds greater exposition to news stories usually, like throwing in a case study to improve personal interest.
- News Feature - adding more of a person touch to the news, not really to do with features.
- Profiles - creating a profile on a person or subject.
- Arts Review - reviewing things like immigration, for example there are a whole bunch of films and short films that explore immigration and so on.
- Investigations - a step further than news, going deeper into a subject to gain a deeper insight.
- Observational - putting yourself into a situation and then write what you see - for example Hunter S Thompson and Thomas Wolfe. An example would be 'my time as a conservative party member'.
- Reader Response - reaction to events, usually delivered by a 'text us what you think about this at... or tweet us at...'
For features you must always stick to a word limit. This is because everything in a magazine is meticulously planned out and if you're given a limit you must get it spot on, anything less or anything over would ruin the whole production cycle. Here is a rough difference between news and features!
