sources of feature stories are everywhere,--on the
street, in the club, at church, in the court room, on the athletic
field, in reference books and government publications, in the journals
of fashion, anywhere that an observing reporter will look. Old settlers
and residents, particularly on their birthdays and wedding
anniversaries, are good for stories of the town or state as it used to
be fifty years ago; and their photographs add to the value of their
stories. Travelers just returned from foreign countries or from distant
sections of the United States provide good feature copy. Educational
journals, forestry publications, mining statistics, geological surveys,
court decisions, all furnish valuable data. The only requirement in
obtaining information is personal observation and investigation.

=280. Form.=--The form of the feature story is anomalous. It has none.
One is at liberty to begin in any way likely to attract the reader, and
to continue in any way that will hold him. Possibly informal leads are
the rule rather than the exception--leads that will arrest attention by
telling enough of the story to excite curiosity without giving all the
details. Note the suspensive effect of the following leads:

| =SAM DREAMS OF ROBBERS= |
| |
|Two big black-bearded robbers, armed to the hat-band|
|and vowing to blow his appetite away from his |
|personality if he uttered a tweet, walked into the |
|mind of Samuel Shuster on Wednesday night as he lay |
|snoring in his four-post bed at No. 11 Market |
|Street. One placed a large warty hand around |
|Samuel's windpipe and began to play it, and the |
|other with a furtive look up and down stage reached |
|into his pocket and drew forth $350. With a scream, |
|two yowls, and a tiger, Samuel awoke.... |

| =FIXES BROKEN LEG WITH NAILS= |
| |
|Capt. Patrick Rogers of truck company No. 2 found a |
|man leaning against the quarters at Washington and |
|Clinton Streets early yesterday and demanded what he|
|was doing. |
| |
|"I broke my leg getting off a car," said the |
|stranger. "Gimme a hammer and some nails and I'll