After reading the three feature stories and Chapter 6, I not only have a good understanding of what a feature story is, but the technical parts as well. Whenever I buy a magazine, I always go straight to the feature stories. They are typically really interesting, tell a good story and give me some insight.

Feature stories can vary in length, from fairly long to fairly short. They have a lot more descriptive words, which is something I like (I have that problem with my news writing, so this should be a little bit easier for me :))

I paid special attention to each of the leads in the stories. I especially liked the Shake, Rattle and Sell lead. The entire story was told in a really vivid way, and it all started right at the very beginning. I could picture what was going on the whole time. I don't even like baseball, but now I'm in the mood to go to a game and pig out. I also had no idea how hard these people work. It's pretty obvious that they're carrying around a bunch of food, but 20-40 pounds is a lot more than I thought. The imagery in the story allowed me to imagine myself trying to carry that much food up and down stadium stairs for hours, and it gave me an appreciation for how hard these guys work.

The bottom line of each story isn't exactly important, but that's what feature stories are all about. Feature stories are able to make a big deal out of something that could be told in a few sentences. They can be biographical, like the lemonade guy's story, or they can just tell a cute story, like the girl and her recovered wedding ring.