The Importantance of Voice In Pitching

Hello Edsters!

This past week at the magazine we were given the task to find trends happening that the readers should know about. The ideas we later discussed were then turned into possible pitch ideas for the other editors or web blog posts. My boss gave me and the other features interns great tips about finding stories and the importance of making sure the voice is tailored to the publication and a story the readers would read. A got a lot of tips from the meeting and later found one of my ideas was added to a pitch made by the editor, which was extremely exciting. One fun part of interning at magazine is that you get to see your ideas and hard work in print a few months after the magazine is released. I took away a lot of information and included below some of the highlights. Writing for each magazine is completely different but hopefully these tools and tips are relatable for any publication. 

Timing - Because magazines articles are written long before they are published, make sure the story will be relevant in a few months. Ensure that the readers will care about the issues you're writing about and even topics tied to the months of publication, like a new development in cancer research for October breast cancer month. Although you can't publish breaking news, writing long form gives you the time to dig deep in research. 

3 Tips For Writing Your First Mag Story

Happy hump day, Edsters!

Some big news this week – I have a byline in the magazine!

Last week I blogged about a story I was doing research for. I’m going to get a small research credit for that, but this week something even better developed. My own story and a real byline. I can’t even fully believe it.

Admittedly, this story is not the most exciting thing ever. It’s a small, front-of-the-book item, barely more than 40 words. But still, it means my name and my writing is going to be read by people all over the country, and I couldn’t be more excited.

It was an interesting experience, too. I’m used to writing longer pieces – for me, 500 words is pretty short, never mind 50. I had to figure out a way to shrink three 30-minute interviews into three sentences, which was more of a challenge than I thought it would be. Here are a few things I’ve learned about writing short-form for mags:

Fight For Your Right to Write

I’ll start with what will probably be the highlight of my internship: I’m writing three articles for the magazine! I still can’t fathom that people all over the country will see my name and read my writing. I’m incredibly happy that I have this opportunity — but it’s not going to be easy to pull off.

I found out I was writing these articles the second-to-last week of my internship. That gives me only eight days to work on the articles from the office. I can always work from home and send the articles by e-mail, but it would be nice to leave the internship with everything completed.

Since the timing is so rushed, I got to work as soon as I found out the topics of the articles. The first step was contacting experts that could contribute to each piece. I e-mailed three people, one for each article. One expert said yes right away, while the other two forwarded my e-mail to a few different people. As of now, the end of my second-to-last week, I have one interview completed, one interview scheduled — and the other is up in the air. The people I’ve contacted for that article are foreign and are traveling, so it’s been difficult to confirm that they can answer my questions. I’m hoping they will send me responses next week, but I may be writing that article from home.

Ah yes, actually writing the articles. Since my words will be featured in the magazine, I really want to write professional, informative pieces.