The Renegade Writer Blog

As writers, much of our success depends on the quality and quantity of our ideas. if your idea well is running dry, try these tips for filling it back up:

1. Play a game. I’ve mentioned this tip on the blog before: Open your dictionary to a random page, close your eyes, and randomly choose a word. Then come up with a list of ideas based on that word. Nothing gets the ideas flowing like considering articles about insouciance, syzygy, or herring!

2. Read, read, read. We writers need to be voracious readers of anything and everything. Read magazines you like, but also browse the parts of the newsstand that you rarely visit, such as the sections on pets, politics, or military history. And don’t forget newspapers, comic books, press releases…and oh yeah, books.

3. Be oppositional. When you see an idea all over the magazine world, figure out what its opposite would be and pitch that. Several years ago when peanuts were in the news because airlines had stopped serving the humble legume to do flyers’ food allergies, I pitched and sold an article called “In Defense of the peanut,” about the peanut’s health benefits.

4. Create a combo. Choose up two unrelated ideas or words (like insouciance and herring) and play with combining them. For example, in the late 1990s, I noticed that every issue of the women’s magazines seemed to have “orgasm” or “diet” on the cover. I combined them, and sold “The Better Orgasm Diet” to Redbook.

5. Ask your friends. Send an e-mail to all your friends and family members asking them what problems or challenges they’re facing that they’d like to read more about. Then be a hero and solve your friends’ woes by pitching articles about them.

6. Get local. You can often dig up fresh ideas that deserve a national audience by scouring your local paper, regional magazines, and even alumni magazines. Is that local trend of peppered popcorn at the movies actually a nationwide movement that’s bemoaned by the National Salt Board? Do some digging and see if your local idea can go national.

7. Go national. Along the same lines, you can check out national publications for ideas that would work well reslanted for local magazines. Read an article about a hot new researcher? Pitch a profile to her alumni magazine. See a piece about upscale hotdog stands? Work up a query about a local el-expensivo hotdog stand to send to a regional magazine.

8. Celebrate. If your holidays are limited to Christmas, the Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, you’re missing out on a goldmine of ideas.  There are dozens of holidays each month, and you can make an idea more salable by latching it onto one of them.  For example, January is “Clean Up Your Computer” month; so how about an article on how to give your computer a spring cleaning?  August 22 to 29 is National Save Your Smile Week, so an article about new technologies in dental care would be perfect. To gather ideas, check out Wikipedia’s List of Commemorative Days (thanks to our reader Lauren for this tip) and MyDailyPlan-It.com’s Zany Holidays and Celebrations.

Do you have any tips for generating ideas? Do you have any article ideas that combine insouciance and herring? Post them in the comments! [lf]

Share This