Feature leads differ from the traditional summary lead that is straightforward and goes through the 5 W's. Although short feature stories can start off with summary leads, they would not try to get as many W's and an H in that a writer would do for a hard news story. Feature leads are more descriptive than summary leads because their goal is to make the reader interested so they will continue reading the full story. Some different types of feature leads include anecdotal, narrative, descriptive, and question.
I found an example of a descriptive lead on the Baltimore Sun website from Sunday, Feb. 15:
A naked man on a motorcycle who crashed with an Arkansas state trooper's cruiser on a night when it was sleeting faces misdemeanor charges. A police report said a 35-year-old man kept riding when a trooper tried to pull him over during the Jan. 26 incident.
It follows some of the same guidelines as a summary lead but gives more detail since this story is unusual and not typical.
Another example of a feature lead was in the New York Times also on Sunday, Feb. 15:
The 74-seat turboprop plane that crashed Thursday night near Buffalo was part of an expanding fleet of small regional aircraft that have become a vital part of the country’s airline industry and are increasingly the only air link available to far-flung towns and smaller cities.
The lead doesn't only answer the 5 W's, but goes into detail about the aircraft since it is a follow-up article about the Buffalo plane crash that occurred a few days ago.
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