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Topic: How Do You Generate Ideas With A Fresh Slant?
| Author | Message |
| csthejournalist1 | Posted – 5/15/2006 1:36:57 AM | show profile Computer glitch before. Hope this time it goes through: I'm coming up with ideas, but they just don't seem new enough. In other words, I can't seem to come up with something that hasn't been covered, and can't get that fresh slant. Any suggestions? |
| overthehillwriter | Posted – 5/15/2006 3:56:22 AM | show profile | email poster One thing I've noticed is the bigger the magazine, the less impressed they are with pitches, generally. The smaller the publication, the more grateful they are for someone to toss them ideas. Also, seems to me the bigger the pub, the more likely someone is to say 'Not my department' or 'We're already working on that' (could be, or could be code for 'Nice idea -- I'll assign it to my pal Suzy') To me, it's impossible to keep up with, oh, Woman's Day, to name one. If I read it every damn week to know what they HAVE done in the past two eyars, I'd never get any work done. So the closest I can come there is to read one edition thoroughly to get an idea of what looks fresh to them. Notice the heads they put on something like "infidelity." Been done to death, right? Look at how they treat it. you can believe there's something about that piece that puts a "new" slant. "10 ways to know if he's cheating on the net -- and how you can get your man back from online trash." Bad example, you get the idea. Unfortunately, the bigger the pub the less time editors have for playing footsie and helping finetune ideas. My observation is smaller pubs are more willing to say "Not looking for THAT, but I'd like xxxx" -- however, they'll only do that if you're credible as far as they're concerned. |
| Stressed | Posted – 5/15/2006 9:16:57 AM | show profile What drives me mad is rejections that tell me my idea isn?t all that fresh? and then you get your monthly issue and it?s the same old same old trotted out yet again. |
| csthejournalist1 | Posted – 5/15/2006 10:51:45 AM | show profile 2nd poster - You disappeared into cyberspace! Whoever was the 2nd individual kind enough to respond to the posting: Could you try to repost? Your reply seems to be missing. I did send an email to the tech person for MB, but whether he'll be able to track it is another story. And, as is always the case here, I appreciate the feedback..... |
| globetrotter78 | Posted – 5/15/2006 11:02:37 AM | show profile I've been having that same problem with editors! Glad you addressed it here. I just don't have the time to read multiple publications month after month to make sure they haven't covered a topic yet. I even had one editor tell me that they had covered my idea in the past 5 years! No way I could have known that. Oh well... |
| mkelly | Posted – 5/16/2006 8:41:46 AM | show profile Just pitch the same idea with the words 'IN BED' tacked on the end. Oh, c'mon, people, that was funny. |
| overthehillwriter | Posted – 5/16/2006 10:35:43 AM | show profile Ha! mkelly ... Great idea -- same thing you do with fortune cookies, right? Take whatever the fortune is and add "in bed" The principle is dynamic. |
| JimmyG | Posted – 5/16/2006 11:22:48 AM | show profile Part of the problem is that many mags are just more comfortable with coming up with their own topics--original or not--and assigning them to their own "known" writers. When I was on staff at a known consumer mag I'd get queries from writers all the time suggesting topics we just plain covered on a yearly basis using our regular stable of contributors. (Too often they were of the "I just bought my first laptop computer and would like to share with your readers what I've learned about them in the process..." type--always bad form.) And yet when someone suggested something terribly original, it almost never fit into our format, or got rejected at a staff meeting. Now that's not to say I never found a new author from a query. If someone pitched me a story who was well published and was an "expert" writer in one of the areas we covered, I'd almost always hold onto his/her info and use that person at the next available opportunity. As a freelancer I try to pitch myself and my qualifications above any ideas I might have. It's rare that I'm able to second guess what a publicatiion "really" wants just by looking at back issues. Once I'm "in" with a publication I'll follow up an assignment with a couple of one-paragraph topic ideas for future assignments. I'd say of the writing assignments that come in for which I'm not already under a regular contract, 60 percent are ideas that come from the magazine or web site, and 40 percent come from me (with at least half or more of those being "recycled" versions of articles I've done elsewhere). |
| overthehillwriter | Posted – 5/16/2006 11:29:00 AM | show profile | email poster Jimmy, I agree, and I know some work that way. However, at some of the publications -- women's magazines, for example -- they refuse to make assignments to freelancers. Here's the part that gets me (as a former editor-in-chief!) -- by relying on freelancers to submit story ideas, they relinquish control over content. Many other magazines seem to be a blend of both approaches -- I have editors that ask me to pitch to them but also make assignments to me now they know me and my work. |
| overthehillwriter | Posted – 5/16/2006 11:32:17 AM | show profile | email poster Something else I've noticed -- recycling my own ideas and material is harder now that magazine websites are posting web content. If an editor can google your name and a story idea and come up with a place you've already done a piece (albeit with a different slant) are they less likely to want your "fresh" new take on it? Depends on how timely it is. |
| csthejournalist1 | Posted – 5/16/2006 5:31:53 PM | show profile At least I know I'm not the only one who seems to be baffled or disturbed about this issue. I just came up with two great ideas - and naturally, when I looked at the magazines I wanted to pitch - voila! there they were, full features (actually, one of them a friend of mine says he remembers reading about in AARP, the magazine I wanted to pitch that piece to). Is there such a thing as running out of ideas? Or slants? I know that many of the women's magazines recycle ideas five to ten years. What happens in the interim? OK. So you guys all agree with this being a problem. What are you selling to magazines, then? How do you become prolific? |
| JimmyG | Posted – 5/17/2006 1:53:20 PM | show profile It helps to develop a specialty in a topic that more or less refreshes itself. New cars (new models and technology every year), consumer electronics (ditto), personal finance (slants change concurrent with the blips in the economy), and so on. You might be writing the same kids of stories for different clients at different times (where to invest now, hot new car features, etc.), but the information will almost always be different, and new topics will emerge depeding on what's newest or has recently changed. |
