1 / 10

Ideas : a magazine’s lifeblood

Ideas : a magazine’s lifeblood. Editorial bootcamp MAGS 2/6/08. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas. 1 / Find the superlative What’s the biggest/smallest/worst/best/ priciest/cheapest/craziest example of the subject you want to explore? What’s first place? What’s last place?

silvio
Download Presentation

Ideas : a magazine’s lifeblood

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Ideas: a magazine’s lifeblood Editorial bootcamp MAGS 2/6/08

  2. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas 1 / Find the superlative What’s the biggest/smallest/worst/best/priciest/cheapest/craziest example of the subject you want to explore? What’s first place? What’s last place? Atlanta’s No. 1 for personal bankruptcy Indiana’s No. 1 for soybeans Alana Renaud is the tallest woman in Atlanta

  3. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas 2 / Find a story, not a subject How can you illustrate the topic by telling a moving story with action, characters, dialog? (And we’re not talking anecdotal lede.)

  4. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas 3 / Skip the words, use pictures Photo essays, comics, illustration, all work to convey a story better than writing.

  5. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas 4 / Tell conventional stories unconventionally, unconventional stories conventionally A “revisionist history” was the best way to treat the tired subject of Michael Vick’s fall from grace. A serious business story on the economic impact was the best way to approach a look at Atlanta’s adult entertainment industry.

  6. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas 5 / Write a headline If you can come up with a winning headline that you fall in love with, the story will follow. (A great way to sell ideas to editors who are too lazy to write headlines). • Ripple Effect • There Goes the Neighborhood • Crimes of Fashion

  7. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas 6 / Ask a question If the question is provocative enough, you will be compelled to answer it in your research and reporting—and readers will want to discover the answer. • Do good women prefer bad boys? • Do blondes have more fun? • Why do Georgia’s SAT scores suck?

  8. 7 Guaranteed Ways to Generate Ideas 7 / When all else fails, make a list (and don’t forget the magic power of 7) If you are exploring a broad universe, select a round, logical number. The top 40 songs of all time, the 100 most influential people. If you are exploring a select, specific universe, make your criteria strict and only include discoveries that warrant a spot on the list. The 7 best new spas of 2007, the 17 best day trips, 27 reasons to love your iPhone.

More Related