Studio Blog

When I was writing for my college newspaper I sometimes felt like I was sent on some wild goose chases with the story ideas from my editors. Because my ambitions to become a great writer wouldn’t allow me to avoid these challenging assignments, I usually wandered out on campus without a clue about how to approach the subject. Would my story turn out to be chicken turd or chicken salad?

This is a problem all writers probably face at some point in their career, and they’re lucky if it only happens once.

The way I solved this recurring problem was to build a network of sources I could use more than once. My intent was not to interview the same sources for every story, but to utilize their social networks to find new people who would make great interview subjects. Without great sources it’s practically impossible to write a good article.

This is something that you can apply to your writing in the Studio as well. Instead of searching blindly on the Internet, build your own research library of trusted sites one source at a time. Eventually you will know exactly where to go for credible information on gardening, health, legal or any other categories you regularly cover. This will save you research time and help you avoid rewrite requests based on untrustworthy sources.

I also encourage you to take one article a month and give it a little extra attention by finding a person to interview. Just to be clear, I’m not speaking about a new editorial policy. I’m just encouraging you to, every once in a while, spend a little extra time on an article when you find a title that really speaks to you. Or better yet, try it out on a title that makes you scratch you head and question the sanity of Demand’s title algorithm. Sometimes those titles turn into something really interesting when executed properly.

Here are two examples of titles most people would not even think twice about claiming, but they turned out to be really good articles.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5391278_build-turtle-robot.html

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5256421_reasons-against-back-window-car.html

One of my most memorable oh-my-lord-how-am-I-going-to-handle-this-one moments was when I was asked to write an article during Black History Month about black students at our school who defy stereotypes. I had three days to find people to interview and come up with an interesting angle. This was the end result:

http://sundial.csun.edu/2006/02/studentshelpdefystereotypesofyoungafricanamericans/

Chicken turd or chicken salad? You be the judge.