Inspiration is overrated. And there’s no such thing as a journalist’s muse. So where do freelance feature writers find their ideas, asks Laura Powell?
Week after week, I sat in lectures making notes and waiting for the answer to my question. My MA in journalism came and went, and the answer never arrived. I read my lecturer’s brilliant textbook (Good Writing for Journalists) and didn’t find the answer in that either. Eight years on, I’m still waiting for the answer. I’ve asked many writers, but none of them can tell me. (Or perhaps they just don’t want to.) The question? Where does a features writer find their ideas?
Starting out as a features writer at a newspaper, this didn’t matter a great deal. Ideas and top lines were determined by a team of skilled commissioning editors and doled out to the writers. I simply had to write to their brief. Then I left my day job and, for a year, freelanced like mad for all sorts of newspapers and consumer magazines. Thrown in at the deep end, it was up to me to find ideas and persuade editors to accept them. Cue hour after hour of scrabbling around for ideas. Only in retrospect can I look back and fathom where these ideas came from. Sort of.
1. Read everything
Obvious, I know. But how can you come up with fresh ideas unless you know what the old ones are? And by everything, I mean everything: Newspapers, glossy magazines, B2Bs and trade mags, Twitter feeds, blogs, documentaries, the small ads in the back of your local freesheet. Even Craigslist has been known to spawn the occasional feature. “There’s no substitute to reading absolutely everything relevant to your subject,” says Rob Clark, freelance sports writer. “That’s what sparks the great ideas.”
2. Get online
More and more journalists are getting their ideas from social media, a survey by PR firm Oriella has found. A hefty 62% of journalists in North America draw news from trusted sources on Twitter and Facebook, and 64% rely on blogs as a source of ideas. Blogs, podcasts, Twitter feeds are all sources of free ideas, if used well and fact-checked rigorously.
- Polish your magnifying glass
Journalists miss things. They might write a fabulous interview but it’s easy to fail to pick up on a tiny point that, if drawn out, could make a feature in its own right in another publication. As a freelancer, I read a magazine article about a famous opera singer, who hinted she had battled with an eating disorder. The interviewer didn’t probe; it wasn’t relevant to that publication. But that sort of story was gold-dust to a big Sunday newspaper. I pitched it to one of them, they agreed, the singer agreed to be interviewed, easy peasy.
- Be a good listener
The week after a sub editor friend left her job to establish herself as a freelance features writer, she found herself in a dinner party discussing asexuality. Several people at the party knew people who were asexual; supposedly an uncommon trait. She found it interesting, and thought others would too, so the next day she put the idea to a glossy women’s magazine, whom she had never contacted before. She earned herself her first commission. Not bad for a day’s work – or an evening’s supper.
NB: No need to exploit your friends. In this case, my friend used that idea as a springboard but procured case studies from elsewhere.
- Sell yourself
You don’t need to turn into the next Samantha Brick or Liz Jones to harness the value of your life stories. A personal anecdote can make for an interesting feature, and the broadsheet supplements (Stella, G2, Guardian Weekend, Style etc) all run first-person pieces tastefully. I established a relationship with Easy Living magazine by writing about my crippling lifelong dog phobia – and how hypnotherapy cured it. But set your moral boundary and stick to it. I pitched an anecdote-based idea to a newspaper and asked to write it anonymously because it involved a friend. The commissioning editor loved the idea and offered £2k for it, but said I had to use my real name. I declined; that friendship was worth more than £2k. Ditto an article that would have involve sharing my weight and size with the world…
- Forward planning
Keep abreast of everything popular-culture related. Film releases, book releases, new TV dramas, plus what’s going on in the arts, culture, sporting and technology worlds. It sounds obvious but it’s surprising how trends come in waves, and how these trends can be easily noticed if you just keep one eye on what’s going on in popular culture. Look no further than Stylist’s big feature about the rising number of TV dramas with strong female detectives for an example of this. And legendary American photographer Bill Cunningham has made living for the last 50 years or so by keeping his finger on the pulse of popular culture. If it’s good enough for them…
- Give idea generating the time it deserves
Just as novelist Ian McEwan fastidiously devotes his mornings to researching before he begins writing, any freelance writer worth their salt will do the same. So allot a portion of your day to researching ideas. (And by this, I mean researching ideas for articles, rather than researching background material for articles you’ve already been commissioned.)
- Ask
They might not throw ideas at you, but knowing the publication you’d like to write for inside out and ultimately asking the editor if there is any type of article they’re lacking can lead to a commission or several. Perhaps they have a bank of freelance writers specialising in various topics or feature styles but have a lack of writers specialising in another. Knowing how to shape your pitches and tailor your ideas to what they’re lacking is invaluable. And will save you time too.
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