Every Good Story Starts With a Good Idea

Developing Stories from Your Beat, Your Community, Your Imagination

Story ideas are literally all around you. You only need to be alert and imaginative in recognizing and pursuing them. You can generate story ideas by looking in a variety of places:

The news.
By the very nature of our business, most of our story ideas will come from the news. Don't let yourself fall into the trap of simply covering the events or the debate. You're not a board secretary recording what happened. Think of other ways to cover the news. Should you write a blow-by-blow narrative of a big event where you've provided incremental daily coverage? Can you take a different approach to a news event or issue by writing an explanatory piece, a follow-up, looking ahead, assessing the impact, placing it in context of other events or historical background? Will a behind-the-scenes account add insight or interest? Is a person involved with the event or issue worth a profile?

People.
The people in your readership area are interesting and important. Many of them are worthy of stories just by themselves. And they know the stories that are interesting. Spend more time outside the newsroom, talking to your sources and developing new sources. Ask them what's important. Ask what's the best story that ought to be in your paper that hasn't yet. Ask what they do outside the office.

Paper.
Boring reports often contain nuggets of information that can lead to an exciting story. Take a closer look at the mountains of paper produced on your beat. Ask someone to explain some of them to you, to help you cut through the statistics and jargon to what's important. Look at some documents that aren't going to turn up on your regular rounds. For instance, if you're a courthouse reporter, you probably spend little time looking at probate files or bankruptcy cases. But maybe a probate file will reveal a huge fight brewing in a prominent local family, or a frugal old lady no one knew was a millionaire. A bankruptcy file might lead you to a poignant story of broken dreams. You probably report on a big lawsuit when it's filed and when it comes to trial. But most suits are settled and might be noted just briefly then, if at all. Take a look at the motions and depositions that follow the initial suit. Maybe that's where the story is. Look over the affidavits filed with a search warrant.

Databases.
Could you find a good story by analyzing data kept by an agency you cover? The National Instititute for Computer-Assisted Reporting has some books giving ideas that virtually any beat can use to produce stories through data analysis. What would you like to know that computers on your beat might be able to tell you?

Internet.
Stay familiar with your community resources on the Internet. Sometimes a Web site itself may be a story. Or it may reveal information that will launch you on a story. It may be a source of information you can tap on deadline after the office is closed. Maybe a local business is finding customers around the globe because it is using the Internet wisely. Maybe a clever Webmaster gives the electronic world an entirely different view of the company or organization that's known locally as stodgy and old-fashioned.

Inquiry.
Find answers to your questions (and always have lots of questions): Why is that? Who's getting away with something here? Why doesn't this work? If you're wondering, your readers may be wondering, too. The answers are probably a story. Ask some readers and sources what questions they have about your community.

Theft.
Steal good story ideas wherever you can. If you see a story you admire in another paper or on the wire, ask whether the same story could be done in your community. Ask sources what else they know of going on in the community. Ask what stories they would assign if they were the editors of your paper.

Questions.
The questions we learned our first week in our first journalism class remain fundamental to developing good story ideas? Who's responsible? What's going to happen next? When is that likely to happen again? Where did the money go? Why wasn't anyone watching? How can we prepare ourselves for the next time? In addition to the traditional 5 W's and How, include at least two others in your list of basic questions to ask for each story, and to use for generating story ideas: So what? and How much? Come up with your own basic questions to ask.

Story Elements.
OK, I've mentioned how important the W's are, but let's think beyond them, every step of the way, starting with the story idea. What are the elements of a story that we learned in 8th-grade English? Think in terms of setting, plot, character, conflict, climax, resolution. Each of those story elements might suggest some stories to pursue.

Prospecting.
Take time to go "prospecting" for stories. That means to take a trip or set up an interview with no particular story in mind. You're visiting a source you haven't seen for a while or a community or agency you haven't covered for a while. You go just to familiarize yourself, to take someone to lunch or chat in the office or home a while. Maybe you'll come back with a terrific story you never would have known enough to pursue. Maybe you'll come back without a particular story, but with some tips to pursue. Maybe you'll just come back with a valuable source to contact in future stories. At the least, you'll gain a greater understanding of your community and your beat. Prospecting almost always yields stories and is always time well spent. You just can't tell the editor in advance what it's going to produce.