SiteWill Your Article Idea Fly? Here’s How to Find Out
One of my e-course students asked me how to know if an idea will fly before you start putting a lot of work into it. For example, say you come up with the idea “10 Reasons It’s Good to Be Bad,” about the benefits of letting your wild side show. Before you pitch, you need to figure out: Are there really any benefits to being bad? And if so, will you be able to come up with enough reasons to make a full article?
As a writer, part of your job is to vet your own ideas…to figure out what will work and what won’t. Sometimes, true, you end up getting an assignment on an idea you and the editor thought would work and you later find out that it that you can’t support the idea. But you want to avoid that situation as much as possible, and that means doing research before you pitch an idea.
That’s one of the reasons I suggest doing brief interviews for the query. The interviews do more than boost your query by showing your editor that you know how to find appropriate sources and get good quotes — they also let you test out your idea. Are you able to find sources who can talk about your idea? Are sources telling you your idea doesn’t make sense?
It can be difficult, especially for new writers, to get sources to do interviews before you have an actual assignment. Here’s what I do: I call or e-mail the source and say, “I’m working on an article proposal for Wonderful Woman magazine on why it’s good to be bad. Would you be interested in participating in a very brief interview on this topic? It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. Then, if I get the assignment, I’ll contact you to set a more in-depth interview.” I have had very, very few people refuse this request.
Renegade readers, how do you ensure your idea will fly before you write up your query? Please post your advice in the Comments below! [lf]
11 Responses to “Will Your Article Idea Fly? Here’s How to Find Out”
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Kenneth Sena
Said this on April 15th, 2009 at 6:06pm:if you have done your query interview, first thing you do is to know which concept should come first. you should do this so that your article will flow smoothly. you have to make sure that you have used all your possible sources in your article, this is especially your query interview. you also have to put yourself in the situation of your interviewee. through this, you would understand how they feel. if your do these few things, you can surely write a good article. (www.kika.ca)
Sarah
Said this on April 16th, 2009 at 2:49am:Thanks for the great advice! As a newbie, it can be very intimidating to ask someone for an interview…especially when you don’t even know if the article will sell! I am noticing a recurring theme here – most established professional writers say to just go ahead and ask for the interview because most people are willing to help out. Thanks again!
Debbie
Said this on April 16th, 2009 at 10:53am:If the original idea didn’t fly, I usually try to shift it slightly to make it work. Usually editors are happy if you come back to them with not just the problem (“that idea didn’t work…”) but the solution (” this minor twist on it will make it work”). As for work done before the query, sometimes I’ll do a brief outline (usually to help me remember what I had in mind when I wrote the query). Personally, I don’t like to do a full interview, because then you have someone expecting to see their quotes in your published article.
sunehra
Said this on April 16th, 2009 at 1:11pm:I definitely always interview a few experts before I send out my query. I love profnet.
cal
Said this on April 16th, 2009 at 1:32pm:Research is a good litmus test. Check on google news (and the archives) and see what, if anything, has been written about your topic, company, sector etc. Sometimes this helps to come up with a more commercial angle or change the hook — if eco-friendly gardens were all the rage 5 years ago, maybe the story is about keeping it eco on a budget, now.
LindaFormichelli
Said this on April 16th, 2009 at 5:13pm:Thanks for your comments!
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Said this on April 17th, 2009 at 11:24am:[...] The Renegade Writer’s Will Your Article Idea Fly? [...]
Anne
Said this on April 19th, 2009 at 6:35pm:I don’t do interviews before getting a commission – what a waste of time. Some of my ideas get commissioned, some don’t, I’m often surprised by which ones do/don’t get taken up and if I interviewed potential sources for every one it would be a huge waste of time. I only line up specific interviewees if they are celebrities, exclusive first-person stories, or if a particular expert or case study inspired my piece. Otherwise I just suggest who I could talk to, e.g. “I could speak to a lawyer and a psychologist.” With case studies – people who have had particular experiences – I just suggest examples of the kinds I might find, e.g. “I could talk to one person who did X and one who did Y.”
Communication is a vital part of this job and anyone calling themself a journalist should be able to call or email someone to offer them a media opportunity. If you worked on staff, nobody would have any patience with a reticence to approach sources. Sorry to be blunt but if you want to be a journalist you need to get over that fear of talking to people by just doing it anyway.
So how do I make sure my article idea will fly? First off, I write up a line to summarise it, which I will use as the subject line of my pitch. Then I ask myself why it is interesting now, to readers of this particular publication, and what I have to say that is new and interesting. If I wanted to pitch “10 reasons it’s good to be bad” I would think about who the article was aimed at, what they could get out of it, and a more interesting way of selling it. I wouldn’t pitch “10 reasons it’s good to be bad”, I’d pitch “10 lessons you can learn from your inner wild child”, because that implies a purpose and an audience.
Anne
Said this on April 19th, 2009 at 6:48pm:p.s. an important distinction: people you quote in articles are not “helping out”. There is something in it for them too and it is in their interest to be involved.
cal
Said this on April 20th, 2009 at 6:23am:Agree with Anne — I never interview for a pitch.
On staff, you’d never have the time to conduct interviews for a maybe story, why should you as a freelancer?
Also, it can erode your credibility with sources. It sounds like you’re wasting their time if you say it’s for an article proposal, if you don’t say that and the story doesn’t fly, then what? Some of them will get back to you asking what happened, if you specialize at all you may need to talk to them again for an actual assignment.
Anne
Said this on April 20th, 2009 at 2:58pm:Agree to a point with regards to credibility. But even if an article does get commissioned, there is no guarantee that a) it will actually definitely run and b) that I won’t cut out that source for reasons of space or quality.