Foreword: From a writer

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was an American sitcom based in the newsroom of WJM-TV, a small television station in Minneapolis. Tyler Moore, although the nominal star, as often as not let herself be the foil to the kinds of inflated or disappointed egos you find in any newsroom. Among them was Murray Slaughter, the news bulletin’s chief writer who had aspirations but probably not the talent to graduate to greater things (Gavin MacLeod, who played him, went on to star in The Love Boat – thus do the gods mock us all). In one episode, Mary brought a 15-year old who wanted to be a journalist in to see him. ‘Do you like writing?’ the boy asked. ‘Let me see,’sighed Murray. ‘I like getting paid for what I write. I like reading what I wrote. I like having written. No, I don’t like writing.’

Many of us lucky enough to earn a living by our words would, if we were honest, give much the same reply, and, I suspect, feature writers would agree most strongly of all. Features are not as hard to write as a doctoral thesis, a ‘Dear John’ letter or a holiday postcard, but they are tricky. Unlike news stories, they rarely have an obvious beginning or an end. You want to be clear but you don’t want to be patronising. Humour is good but not silliness. The author’s personality should be visible but no one wants to be told they have written about themselves rather than their subject. Accuracy is important but so is the need to entertain, especially over longer lengths. So, yes, each is a puzzle that needs to be solved, and in its own way. Yet a good feature is more satisfying than almost any other form of journalism. Since it admits complexity, it is more likely to be truthful.

This is not a short book but reading it is the quickest way I know of reducing the risks in writing a profile or a review, a news feature or an opinion column. For a beginner, it would, I imagine, be invaluable. To someone who has been writing features for decades, it has, I can confirm, some tricks to impart. For all of us, Brendan Hennessy narrows the gap between the agony of the ‘new document’ screen and the joy of ‘having written’.

Andrew Billen

Andrew Billen began his career in journalism on the Sheffield Star in 1980. Since 1993 he has written ‘The Billen Interview’ for, successively, The Observer, the London Evening Standard, and The Times. He has been the New Statesman’s television critic since 1997.