01
1. Why a feature needs a different spine
News answers a question the reader already has. A feature usually has to create the question before it answers it, which is why front-loading everything kills a feature: once the reader knows the outcome and the significance, the remaining three thousand words are optional. The spine of a feature is therefore a sequence of small unanswered questions, each one resolved just as the next is raised.
That does not license withholding material for suspense. The reader is entitled to know early what kind of piece they are reading and why it exists. The tension comes from the specific and human material below that level: what happened next, what the person decided, whether the process worked. Feature structure is the art of ordering true material so it is intelligible, not of hiding it.
02
2. Scene, summary and the alternation between them
Long non-fiction is built from two kinds of paragraph. A scene has a place, a time, people doing something and detail a reader can picture; it moves slowly and carries feeling. A summary compresses weeks or years, carries figures and context, and moves quickly. Almost every readable feature alternates them, because scene without summary has no meaning and summary without scene has no grip.
The practical craft is deciding what deserves a scene. A scene costs three hundred words and must earn them by advancing the piece, not merely decorating it. In practice a feature of two thousand words supports perhaps three or four scenes. Choose the moments where something changed, and make sure each one is built from material you observed or from an account you can attribute, never from plausible reconstruction.
03
3. The nut graf and where it goes
The nut graf is the paragraph that tells the reader why this piece exists and why now. It answers the question a reader forms after an opening scene: interesting, but what is this about? It usually runs three to six sentences, sits between the third and the eighth paragraph, and contains the scale of the thing, the reason it is timely, and the promise of what the piece will show.
Two common faults. Placed too early, the nut graf reads as a summary of an article the reader has not begun, and the opening scene becomes decoration. Placed too late, the reader has already decided the piece has no point. If you cannot write the nut graf, the problem is not the writing: the piece has no argument yet, and no amount of good scene work will supply one.
04
4. Chronology, braid and frame
Three structures cover most features. Straight chronology suits a piece whose meaning is in the sequence, such as how a decision was made over eighteen months. The braid alternates two or three strands, such as one person's experience against an institutional process, and works when the comparison is the point. The frame opens and closes in the same scene, using the middle for everything else, and works when a single moment contains the story's tension.
Choose before drafting, and mark the transitions explicitly in your outline. Braided pieces fail at the switch: the reader loses which strand they are in because the transition was implicit. A dateline, a section break, a named place or a plain sentence stating the shift all solve it. Whatever you choose, keep the same signal throughout the piece rather than varying it for elegance.
05
5. People, roles and the line you cannot cross
Features work through people, which creates the strongest temptation in non-fiction: to smooth a person into a character. The rules are simple and absolute. Do not invent people. Do not merge people. Do not invent dialogue or attribute a thought that was not described to you. Do not move an event in time for narrative convenience. Do not present a reconstructed scene as an observed one.
Where you must describe an inner state, attribute it: the person said they felt, the person recalled thinking. Where a scene comes from an account rather than your own presence, say so once and clearly. Where the person is anonymous, describe role and access rather than inventing a first name, and keep the description broad enough that it does not identify them, as the sources chapter sets out.
06
6. Choosing detail from a full notebook
A week of reporting produces far more detail than a feature can hold, and the choice is structural rather than aesthetic. A detail earns its place if it does one of three things: establishes a fact the argument needs, makes a scene physically real, or reveals character through behaviour rather than assertion. Detail that only proves you were there is self-indulgence and reads as such.
Work with a budget. Decide how many words the piece has, allocate them across scenes, summary and the nut graf, then select detail to fit. This is also the stage at which to check that every specific you plan to use is actually in your notes. Details half-remembered a fortnight later are the ones that turn out to be wrong, and a wrong detail in a scene undermines everything factual around it.
07
7. Endings that do not editorialise
A feature ending should land rather than conclude. The reliable options are a final scene that shows the situation as it now stands, a return to the opening image with what has changed, a plain statement of what remains unresolved, or a quotation that carries the piece's tension without resolving it artificially. What fails is the summary that tells the reader what to feel.
Resist two habits in particular. The first is the rhetorical question, which invites a reader to supply a conclusion the reporting did not support. The second is the moral, which converts reporting into comment and, in most house styles, belongs in a clearly labelled column instead. If the piece has established something, the reader will reach it without instruction.
08
8. Structural editing: the outline test
When a long draft is not working, the fault is almost always structural and sentence-level editing will not find it. Do the outline test: write one sentence describing what each paragraph does, in order, on a single page. Faults become visible immediately as repetition, as three consecutive paragraphs doing the same job, or as a gap where the piece changes subject without explanation.
Then check three specific things. Does the nut graf arrive before the reader would give up? Does every scene advance something? Is each strand of a braid picked up again within a readable distance? Reordering at outline level takes an hour and usually saves a day of rewriting, and it is the pass that most self-directed writers skip.
Three structures compared
| Structure | Suits | Reader experience | Failure mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight chronology | Processes and decisions over time | Cause and effect in order | Long flat middle with no tension |
| Braid | One experience against one institution | Comparison builds meaning | Unmarked switches lose the reader |
| Frame | A single loaded moment | Return with new understanding | The middle drifts away from the frame |
| Scene-led with late summary | Unfamiliar worlds | Immersion before explanation | The nut graf arrives after the reader has left |
Checklist for a feature draft
- Structure chosen deliberately and named in your outline before drafting.
- Nut graf written, and placed between the third and eighth paragraph.
- Every scene traced to observation or an attributed account.
- No composite people, invented dialogue or moved events anywhere in the draft.
- Word budget allocated across scenes, summary and context before selecting detail.
- Outline test done: one sentence per paragraph on one page.
- Ending shows rather than instructs, with no rhetorical question.
Questions readers ask
Where exactly should the nut graf go?
Usually between the third and the eighth paragraph: after an opening that earns attention, and before a reader would reasonably give up on a piece with no visible point.
Can I reconstruct a scene I did not witness?
You can describe it from attributed accounts, and you must say that is what you are doing. Presenting a reconstruction as observation is fabrication.
Is it acceptable to change a name to protect somebody?
Only with an editor's decision and a statement in the text that the name has been changed and why. Silently substituting a name misleads the reader about the record.