Pity the Poor Reader

Chapter 4

The Power of a Good Idea

Good stories blossom from strong ideas that are well cultivated.

What soil sprouts the best ideas? A mind richly seeded in history, literature and current events. Such a mind draws naturally toward the new and the interesting. It weeds out the cliché from the original, the tired from the fresh.

Good ideas share common attributes:

• Timeliness. The Japanese have an ancient concept called “reading the air.” It means to sense what’s collectively on people’s minds. Writers try to cultivate the same sense. They are forever reading the air, trying to sense what concerns people, what people want to read about. That’s why writers pay such close attention to current events. The news provides clues to what’s on the collective mind. For example, if there’s been another school shooting, people want to read about why America generates so many homicidal loners. Skilled writers riff off of the news.

• Relevancy. Good ideas help us make sense of the world and our lives. They inform and explain: How can we lose weight, live longer and die with dignity. There’s no point in rhapsodizing about eight track cassettes when iPod sales are soaring.
  

• Drama. Life is change. A good idea reflects that reality. It embodies a sense of movement, never sideways, mind you, but always up or down. Good ideas represent a debate, a controversy, even a conflict. Two schools of thought battling to become the next conventional wisdom. A once popular band losing fans. A heretical idea gaining converts. If an idea contains no drama then it’s got about as much pop as flat soda. Get the idea?

• Universality. We never grow tired of some story lines. The tortoise who overtakes the hare. The comeback struggle of a fallen hero. A villain who finally gets his comeuppance. Find stories that embody these ancient and universal themes. Think of Lance Armstrong. His story, rising from  cancer victim to champion bicyclist, exemplifies the come-from-behind underdog. Is it any wonder that people worldwide couldn’t read enough about him?

 
The best of contemporary writing isn't about stenography, the jotting down and listing in no particular order facts and figures. Nor is it about rehashing what's already been written. Both of the above represent the flaccid craft of term paper writing. Save such work for clueless professors who don't know any better. You know the type; they're the ones who confuse quantity with quality. 

Real writing is about parsing real events in real time involving real people. History and context serve as backdrops that help real people, places and events come into sharper focus in the here and now.

The trick is to find things to write about that represent what's going on in the world today in a way that will grab readers' interest.

The best ideas push the envelope of understanding. They give voice to the unspoken, expose a hidden wrong, reveal a new trend or answer pressing social, economic or political questions: Why do so many black children drown in city pools and waterways; why do so many young women hate their bodies and why do some gay men continue to practice unprotected sex, when such behavior has already killed so many people?

A writer is always on the prowl for good story ideas. Luckily, good ideas are everywhere, if one knows how to look for them. Again, here’s where it pays to think like a writer, a keen observer forever wondering about the world.

Consider a few examples of some of my best students at Stony Brook and Emory universities.

Diana once heard a friend complaining about the difficulties of dating a Jewish boy as an Indian Muslim. This friend feared telling her parents, who wanted her to mary a good Muslim boy, preferably Indian. Yet she liked this Jewish boy better than any other she’d ever dated.

Her friend’s dilemma got Diana thinking: How many interfaith couples were there? Did many of them share the same worries as her friend? Such wondering is the first step in developing a story idea. But it’s only the first step. As a good writer, Diana knew to exercise skepticism. She didn’t assume her friend represented a trend; she set out to see if it were true.

Diana’s quest led her first to the Internet. Could she quickly find numbers that quantified interfaith couples? Such numbers did exist, so Diana next tried to find bulletin boards or chat rooms where interfaith couples discussed their problems. Then Diana checked to see if experts, either academics or advocates, had written or spoken about the problems of interfaith couples. It wasn’t long before she had confirmed that her friend did indeed represent a trend. Diana’s quest exemplifies how a writer hunts down and bags a good story idea.

Tina discovered a great story idea while exploring what to do after graduation. At a campus job fair, she dropped in to hear the pitch from metro Atlanta’s DeKalb courthouse officials, who were looking for social workers. What Tina heard didn’t grab her as a job prospect, but it did pique her interest as a writer.

The DeKalb county police, trained to catch thieves and murderers, were flummoxed by the soaring numbers of mentally ill people on the streets. As example, they told the story of a big man who donned an Indian war bonnet and spent the day screaming obscenities at passing police officers in downtown Decatur. Should they fear, ignore or feel sorry for this man?

As Tina listened she wondered: Was DeKalb representative of a larger trend? She buttonholed county administrators and police officers after the presentation. Had they heard of other counties experiencing the same problem; would they let Tina ride with police to witness the problem firsthand? These are the kinds of questions a writer asks to not only confirm an idea but devise a strategy to develop it into a story.

Another good source of ideas are newspapers, magazines, books, academic journals and Web sites. Not for copying what’s already been written, but in finding fresh ideas in old material. Is there a hole in a story, some big question that has gone unanswered, or an important area left unexplored? Better yet, is there a pattern across a series of stories? Some of the best ideas involve connecting seemingly disparate events, as if a series of dots, to reveal a hidden trend.

My student Rachel found just such an unreported trend in a series of newspapers she had been reading. Newspapers from Portland, Ore. to Atlanta had separately reported on students leading lobbying drives to persuade state legislators to provide tax incentives to encourage the development of biofuels. Could these separate movements, Rachel wondered, be part of a larger, orchestrated effort? To find out, she emailed each of the student leaders quoted in the separate stories. The leaders confirmed Rachel’s hunch. They were indeed operating in unison. Rachel discovered an original, first-rate story idea, beating out the likes of the New York Times and the New Yorker.

* * *

Having a good idea, I’m afraid, is not enough to get published. Writers have to persuade editors of the worthiness of their ideas. That’s true whether they are self-employed free lancers or salaried employees of a Web site, newspaper or magazine. Employment doesn’t guarantee a showcase for one’s work.

Few trades are as competitive as writing. Competition takes many forms. There’s competition among publications. Every one prefers to get the jump on a rival. While at Business Week magazine, I could work months on a story, only to see it killed because a rival such as Fortune or the Wall Street Journal beat me to publication with a similar story. The same fate befell my competitors if I beat them to publication.

Competition is stiff within publications, too. Space is finite, even on a Web site. There are always more ideas than a publication can accommodate. Writers and editors compete to get their stories in. Nor does competition end when a story is slated for publication. Next a struggle ensues for how much space a story deserves. Will it get one page or three? Often, one writer’s gain is another’s loss.

 Newbies face particularly stiff competition. They must sell not only their ideas but also themselves. Why is an untried writer - and not some experienced hand - better qualified to write a particular story? If a newbie fails to adequately answer that question, he’ll see his idea lose out to another - or worse: another writer assigned his idea.

All this is to say that writers must be as versed in pitching stories as in writing them.

Pitching an idea, like writing, requires craft. As discussed above, the foremost skill is the ability to identify and develop a good idea. The most ardent and enthusiastic of pitches won’t turn a toad of an idea into a prince of one.

That said, a poor pitch has doomed many a good idea. I know of what I speak. As both a teacher and an editor, I’ve watched green writers mangle their own ideas. They ramble, bloviate or bury the idea’s point or can’t seem to find any point at all. I’ve struck mute many a student with a simple question: Why should anyone read this story and read it now? Failure to answer that question is sure death for any good idea.

Here’s how to save a good idea from getting spiked.

Like Diana and Tina, develop the idea as if expecting to be questioned, even challenged about it. Become the expert. Know enough about an idea to explain and defend its premise. Such expertise builds confidence in an editor that a writer can execute an idea. That’s especially important for fledgling writers.

New writers should subject their idea to this tough question: Why would anyone want to read about it? Cast your pitch from the start to answer this question. It will help to defuse challenges upfront.

Keep the length of pitches to three compelling sentences. All of them should work together, each one building on the prior, telling us the story of an idea.

The first sentence of a pitch should encapsulate the idea dramatically. Think of it as a headline designed to catch an editor’s attention. Use active verbs and end the sentence on a strong word that embodies the idea.

 The next sentence should explain an idea’s relevance. Use at least one big fact that documents the idea in a dramatic way. Finally, the last sentence should answer the question of why anyone would want to read the story and read it now. Here’s where it pays off to think big. Try to imbue the idea with broad appeal. Better yet, try to pitch a story forward, explaining how it speaks to the future.

Let’s consider an example. See below a pitch for a story about how an indiscreet social networking site can hurt a student’s job prospects.

 “Facebook and MySpace have helped many students find friends, but these popular social networking sites might cost some of them a job. Two-thirds of employers now say they’re vetting all job applicants against Facebook and MySpace, discovering scores of sites featuring candidates’ tales of drunken debauchery and even nudity. Such a tactic showcases employers’ increasing sophistication in using the Net to sift through applicants and it represents the latest battleground in the ageless struggle between youthful exuberance and authoritative control.”

Notice how the first sentence portrays the idea of the pitch with drama and sweep. It tells an ironic and surprising story about Facebook and MySpace, wasting no time in casting the idea as new and interesting. The second sentence uses a big figure - “two-thirds of employers” - to give the idea magnitude and credibility. This is not some vague, unmeasurable trend, but one the reader can quantify and describe in meaningful detail. And finally, the concluding sentence imbues the idea with broad appeal, characterizing as part of universal human behavior.

Writing a smart pitch, while hard work, does more than raise the odds of selling a story idea. It sets a writer up well when it comes time to write. A well developed pitch sharpens a writer’s understanding of his story’s theme and audience. Such understanding has saved many a writer from losing his way when crafting a story.