Allan Turner is one of the better writers at the Houston Chronicle. I call him the metro staff’s “designated writer” because he frequently does “off-the-news” features that run on the front page.

He writes too much, in my opinion. I’d love to see what he could do if he had more time to report and craft his stories. Still, you can usually count on him for crafty leads and well-turned phrases. You should look for his byline and pay attention to how he puts his stories together.

He published an interesting story that ran on the front page on Jan. 19. It is about a black family’s quest to learn all it can about its ancestors, specifically a white ex-Confederate soldier and “slave breaker” who apparently fell in love with and raised a family with a freed slave.

Black descendants of William Kelley, a white slave breaker and plantation overseer, gather around a historical marker commemorating Kelley in this Houston Chronicle photograph taken by James Nelson

Think for a minute about how you might write such a story. On the one hand, you’ve got the contemporary tale – black Houstonians determined to unlock the mysteries of their family history. Then you’ve got the history itself. It remains murky – there is much, still, to uncover – but it is fascinating.

Here is how Turner started his story:

OAKHURST – Old William Kelley may have been a devil, a saint or a little of both. But his lavishly bearded face peering from the age-spotted photo betrays little; his lonely grave amid the pines near this San Jacinto County hamlet even less.

Now, 89 years after his death, Kelley’s descendants are struggling to unravel his life, a tale Faulknerian in its complexity. At its heart is this searing contradiction: Kelley, a white plantation overseer, slave breaker and Confederate soldier, fell in love and raised a family with Dinah Rush, a freed slave.

Navigating the social turmoil after the Civil War — law prevented the couple from marrying — Kelley built a school for his nine children, fended off the Ku Klux Klan and willed his estate to his wife and offspring.

I like the way the story acknowledges what cannot be known: “Kelly may have been a devil, a saint or a little of both…(his) photo betrays little…” While doing this, however, the story focuses on the two concrete things about Kelley that can be looked at and touched – the photo showing his “lavishly bearded face” and his grave.

Good feature writing is built on physical detail.

If he’d had more time, Turner may also have told us something about the people (both living and dead) that brought them alive and made them individuals that we can identify with and picture in our minds.

Also, please note that the lead (I consider the first four paragraphs of this story to be the lead) focuses on contradiction: A slave breaker and plantation overseer who falls in love with a black woman, has a family with her and fights off the Ku Klux Klan.

Readers are fascinated by contradictions such as this. Remember this later in the semester when we move into the story-writing phase. There is inherent drama and mystery in contradiction. Lead your feature stories with a profound contradiction, and your reader automatically will be hooked.