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Editors New Twists: Articles
Articles in writers’ magazines sometimes quote editors as saying, “Give me something different.”
Invariably writers misinterpret the word different, and begin coming up with ideas that don’t fit the magazine
at all. A magazine that takes only non-fiction will suddenly begin receiving fiction and poetry. Or a magazine that buys only
technical automotive articles sent a piece on how to buy a car.
This isn’t what editors are saying at all. What they are saying is, “Give me a twist or a new way
of looking at the subjects we are already covering.”
The Twist Defined Just what is a twist? Let’s define it for our purposes as “the usual in an
unusual situation. What is that? Well, most people pets. The usual pet is a dog, cat, turtle, fish, bird or hamster. The unusual
is an alligator, an ostrich, or an elephant. If a magazine regularly ran stories
on pet owners and their pets, the unusual, or a twist to this would be a piece on three children who owned a pet elephant
who went to school with them every day (all legally).
Look For What’s Different A lot of people travel in recreational vehicles. Most of these are standard makes
of trailers, motor homes and campers. But what if an individual had bought a luxury motorhome and begin to convert it to make
it amphibious. He could then pull out into any lake and stay for weeks.
These same magazines sometimes run articles on people who RV full time. Most of these are standard. But what
if we find a retiree who not only lives full-time in an RV but who goes around the country doing good things for poor families?
Now we have a twist that makes the piece extraordinary.
Keep Practicing If you want
to become good at this, I suggest you practice taking some common subjects and ask yourself.” What’s different?
“ Let’s try this with a couple of subjects and see how it works.
Schools. A lot of articles are written on such subjects as how to help your child do better in school, how
to rate your child’s teacher and exactly how should we teach sex education? These are good topics but pretty much standard
fare.
What would be different? Some of the things I can think of quickly: conducting regular school outdoors, letting
the kids grade themselves and running a school without teachers. All of these
are rather incongruous with the conventional idea of a school.
Recently I discovered this article in Family Circle: “How to Get Your Child A ‘Private School Education”
in a Public School. This is a twist that satisfies the editor’s desire for something different.
Jobs. A number of magazines regularly run articles on jobs. Here are a few possibilities that have a twist. “Here
are Five Job Opportunities Where the Only Requirement is that you Spend all Your Working Time in Bed, “Jobs That Let
You Vacation 300 Days a Year,” “Jobs That are More Play Than Work.”
Here’s a title from Family Circle, “How to Get Part Time Jobs That Earn Big Bucks.”
This is a round-up of Part-time jobs that require minimum training, pay well and let you set your own schedule.
Money. Different approaches
could be: How to live the good life without money, banking in Europe from your hometown, how not to lose friends over money.
Try this yourself. Start with a subject and come up with as many different angles that you can
think of. When you have created five or ten good twists, pick the best ones to develop into full articles
