Here’s a checklist you should go over—both before and after you start writing!
1) We are generally writing about people we don’t know. Your subjects are at “arm’s length”. That is to say, friends, siblings, relatives, roommates, partners, employers and so forth should not be in the story unless there’s a really good reason, and then that relationship must be disclosed.
2) While the use of I is not forbidden, the story as a whole is not about you and not about your feelings about things. We are passing on the experiences and stories of our interviewees, not our own! Having situated the story in that way, you can then in some cases reveal your reactions and observations. But we don’t want to hear your opinions—lines like, “It is essential that Mrs. Smith carry on her important work,” or “The pressing problem of climate change must be immediately addressed” and the like are not what we are looking for for this assignment.
3) Write in short paragraphs. A new quotation, specifically, should always be introduced in a new paragraph.
4) Avoid using kids (under 18) in your story. If you must, we need a consent form from their parents.
5) We are not campaigning on a particular issue. Again, we don’t want to hear your opinions. Just talk to people and tell us about their thoughts and experiences and feelings.
6) Introduce your subjects by first and last name and thereafter refer to them by their last name. No first names. (If you are talking to different family members, then first names are of course needed!)
7) Almost all feature stories should have an “outside voice”.
If your story is about a guy who turns his Penrith contracting company into a nexus for supplies to flood victims, of course talk to him and his family. But we also want to hear a) from someone he helped and b) from someone like a mayor or other figure testifying to what he had done.
That’s telling the reader, “Hey I’m not taking the guy’s word for things; here’s an outside person testifying to the validity of my story.”
8) Capitalize the first word of all your sentences. And it is a bit disappointing that we have to even say that!
9) Please note how quotes are punctuated:
“Thank you for your service,” he said.
To be clear: Comma, unquote, space, no caps, he said.
These are wrong:
“I was lucky enough to move into the business.” Fan said.
“It was a difficult decision.” He said.
And to be clear, this is not a minor error. This is a construction that is simply not seen in written English.
Employing that construction in your story is a clear message to your editors/professors that you are not reading English journalism….
… and it tends to make them peevish.
10) Some stories I’ve read have a vivid scene of, for example, someone getting out of bed, hitting an alarm clock and then sitting in front of a computer. Did you actually see that? Or did the subject tell you that?
We don’t make things up. Your reader is going to be thinking, “Were you in the room when he woke up? I don’t think so.” Make it clear if he is the source of that information.
11) Make text in your paragraphs “flush left” or “align left”, not “justified”. It’s generally the first option, like the shaded one here, in this series of icons in your word-processing program:
12) Beware run-on sentences—sentences that are really two, or three, or one-and-a-half sentences.
The neat living room is so clean that it’s a pleasure to look at, even though there is a space where many toys are piled up, it’s still well organized, and the snow-white floor tiles can even reflect people’s shadows.
13) Feel free to include a link to, say, the source of a report you are quoting. But include the name of the report in your story. That is, don’t use the link as attribution. Say, “… according to figures released by the department in 2020.”
And in most cases, cite your data, and then include the attribution. Same with quotes:
“I couldn’t believe it happened to me,” she said, sipping tea at a busy cafe in Sydney’s CBD. “Who could have expected such a thing?”
14) Give us background on your subjects, and go even deeper if one subject is the main character in your story. Where did they grow up? Where did they attend university, and what did they study? Are they married? Kids? Do they have hobbies?
In a story about, say, a doctor who ended up being a first responder during the Covid epidemic, we want to hear about the life his work disrupted. That adds humanity to your tale.
And to the extent possible, let us know about the circumstances of the interview, even if it’s over Zoom. Grab what atmosphere you can: “… on the bookcase behind him were family pictures and a dense array of textbooks…” or whatever.
15) If you are writing from overseas, explain carefully local concepts so your Australian readers will understand, whether it be the “Double Reduction” issue or just RMB amounts. Convert the latter to AUS$.