Ever read your favorite magazine and thought I’d like to write for this? Or maybe your friends are always telling you that you should share your opinions about life? Or you have a real life story you’d like to tell?

Writing for magazines is fun. It’s a way to share your knowledge, to join a community of other writers and enthusiasts, and, of course, to make some extra money. So how can you come with a list of ideas you might want to explore? Let me tell you how I do it.

What Do You Know?

Make a list of all the subjects you could write about. This might be things you know, jobs you’ve had, your hobbies and interests, problems you’ve overcome, strong opinions you hold, and – just as good – the types of articles you would like to read but can’t find. At this stage, remember this list is just for you so don’t censor yourself. Your list might vary from Raising a Teenager to Running a Voluntary Organization to Stamp Collecting. Or maybe you want to write about being a corporate lawyer. Or the joys of being a home-maker. You can cross things off later but for the moment let’s concentrate on getting everything down.

Now go through your list and underline three ideas to start with. You’re going to break these down further and come up with more focused angles. You might, for example, want to write about your hobby of beekeeping. So split your piece of paper into three columns, and think of at least three ideas on this subject that might make good articles. Write these in the first column. Some suggestions might be:

Why beekeeping is a good project to do as a family

How I started beekeeping

Are our bees really in danger?

Who to Approach?

Next to these, in the second column, write the type of magazines who may be interested in each of your three ideas. For example, idea a) may be suitable for family magazines, while idea c) would be of interest to your local newspaper if you wrote from a relevant local angle, or as a personal piece for an environmental magazine.

And in the third column, you are going to write why you want to write this piece. This will be your “hook”, i.e. what will get other people interested. For idea a) this might have a particular family story to tell, or it may be you want to show how easy beekeeping is. The hook behind idea b) might because beekeeping changed your life, or you have an example of how a random conversation can lead to a new hobby.

Where Ideas Come From

Start to look through newspapers and magazines with the aim of generating new ideas. Always take note of the stories that catch your eye because this will be the type of story you will write best, or which will spark a new idea for you. One of my most successful and fun to do articles, for example, was on how we can make use of otherwise wasted time. The idea came from a tiny clipping in our local newspaper about how research had shown we spent several years of our life waiting in cars at the red light! I have a file for such cuttings, and often look through for new ideas. And just to make it clear, I don’t copy these, but use the information to make new pieces of my own.

In my next piece in the series, I want to look at planning your article. Do let me know if there are any areas you’d like covered in particular, but in the meantime, happy list making!

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Writing for Magazines, by Adele Ramet