MEM - How To
Professional journalist and auth
Turner lends us his experience on
have read this before I starte
The first feature I wrote as a journalist received such a
monumental edit that I only recognised a couple of
paragraphs from my original draft. I was mortified when I
saw my byline next to someone else’s copy and, like a lot
of petulant young writers convinced they know best, I
refused to accept the edit could possibly have improved
on my biting, elegant prose. But I was wrong.
I look back on that article with a mix of horror and shame;
it’s a dreadful rambling mess of awkward sentences,
contrived metaphors and ill-placed punctuation. It is
horrible.
Letting an inexperienced writer loose on a decent length
feature is a bit like handing the keys to your Hayabusa
over to a recently qualified CBT grad; it is irresponsible
and dangerous and the end result will be messy at best.
This is because people often see features as an
opportunity to ramble on about a given subject, letting
the words and sentences tumble from the brain to the
page in a sort of purging of the mind, an unstructured
monotonous diatribe that pleases no-one.
In truth, a good feature needs to be tight, well structured,
inventive and, above all else, engaging. As a journalist
I’ve written both news and features and they are very
different disciplines: news is a bit like planning an
adventure, while a feature is more like the actual ride - a
journey shaped by your decisions and choices, where a
little decent preparation can sooth the seas and make for
a very pleasant ride (that’s a mixed metaphor by the way,
avoid those at all costs).