What's a feature story? Here's what ...

We've been trying to define feature stories in a couple of my classes, and we've been having a hard time. Is it "human interest?" Is it a "bright?" A page brightener, in other words? A descriptive essay? A narrative? A profile? All of above? None of above? I've never been able to pin it down, and I've never seen a definition in a book I liked yet.

But now comes the perfect feature story, at least to my way of thinking. It appeared Monday under the headline "Bat or badger? It's the roadkill recipe book," and it's by staff writer Steven Morris of The Guardian, a respected British newspaper. I think it's well written enough to be studied in college. So COM 209 (basic newswriting) and ENG 111 (freshman English) students, please take note.

Look at the lede. It depends on word choice, imagery and detail just as much as any Shakespeare sonnet:

For most, a squashed hedgehog or flattened badger lying on the side of the road is a tragic sight - for Arthur Boyt it is an opportunity for a free, tasty and nutritious meal. Mr Boyt has spent the last 50 years scraping carcasses from the side of the road and chucking them, together with a few herbs and spices, into his cooking pot.

The retired civil servant has sampled the delights of weasel, rat and cat. His most unusual meal was a greater horseshoe bat, which he reckons is not dissimilar in taste to grey squirrel, if the comparison helps. Fox tends to repeat on him. He has tucked into labrador, nibbled at otter and could not resist trying porcupine when he came across a spiky corpse while on holiday in Canada.

Yesterday Mr Boyt (favourite snack: badger sandwich) announced he is ready to share the secrets of his curious culinary success with a wider audience and is writing a roadkill recipe book.

The English teacher in me soars with joy when I savor the alliteration, rhyme and measured cadence of weasel, rat, cat and greater horsewhoe bat in the second graf. This is not your average police beat or county board story!

But it follows a standard newspaper format: (1) an attention-getter in the lede, in this case the descriptions of roadkill but more often an anecdote or story; (2) a "nut graf" in the third graf that tells what the news is, that he's coming out with the book; (3) the body of the story, which strings together lively quotes separated by a graf or two of paraphrase; and (4) a "kicker" that zings you at the end, in this case the last quote about eating a labrador retriever.

Look at how many quotes Morris uses, and how, er, flavorful the language is. "It's good meat for free and I know nobody has been messing with it and feeding it with hormones. By writing a book I hope to show people it's perfectly normal and healthy to eat." And, after a graf of narrative and transition, "If the animal has been dead a while and has gone green the taste is a bit bland, but if you cook them thoroughly, you can still eat it. I've been doing it all my life and never been ill once."

There is one big difference I'd insist on. Morris "buries" quotes. That is, he puts them at the end of a graf. In U.S. newswriting, we don't. We emphasize a quote by starting the graf with it. Often with a one-sentence graf. So I'd write that last graf as two, with attribution added (I've underlined it here to show I've changed the quote, but wouldn't in a newspaper). Like this:

Mr Boyt has no regrets about eating the labrador, which he emphasises was without a collar when he found it.

"There was nothing on it to show who its owner was even though it was in good condition, so I took it home and ate it," he said. "It was just like a nice piece of lamb."

Two students in COM 150 (intro to mass com) were struck by the story, too, when I posted a link to our message. board. One said, "Yummy!!! LOL." The other just answered the question in the headline. "Bat," she said. She didn't explain, and I didn't ask.