ABSTRACT
The initial idea—whether it’s based on an observation, a PR tip, an anniversary, or just plain luck—is only the beginning of the story development process. You must sharpen the basic idea into a focused and workable story suggestion (understanding that the sharpening and development will continue beyond this point). In order to do that, to move to a story suggestion, you have to know what story you are suggesting. Recall the process we have undertaken up to this point. Let’s say you have observed something, an activity, a behavior, something apparently mundane that just might have some larger meaning, or something newsworthy that may merit deeper exploration. You have begun examining that observation by asking a question about it, making inferences about its meaning. For any observation you make, there might be a half dozen topics. For every topic, there might be a half dozen particular stories. Learning Objectives
Tune your ear to the distinctive “voices” of different magazines.
Understand how stories are considered by editors as “right” for their market.
Develop techniques for fine-tuning your ideas to appeal to specific readers of particular magazines.
Chisel an audience-appropriate, people-focused feature story from a broader issue, policy, or topic.
Find the feature story in a news event.
