Coming up with new and interesting ideas to write about is a task in itself. Some days you may be bursting with creativity and brimming with topics to write on which you’re sure everyone will want to read. Then other days, you are left starting at a blank screen, not knowing where to begin.For those days when your creative well has run dry, here are five writing tips which I’ve found particularly helpful.
1. Keep Cuttings
While you’re reading newspapers or magazines, cut out any articles which you are particularly interested in and file them away in a cuttings file. Building up a cuttings file, provides an invaluable source of topics of interest to you while hopefully providing plenty of ideas to write about when you’re stuck. Also, newspapers are always publishing new statistics and results from surveys which can trigger all sorts of article ideas.
2. Search for hot topics
If you’re a speedy writer, you can find article ideas by searching for topics that are currently in most demand on the Internet. A good way of finding out hot topics is by installing a toolbar such as ‘Alexa’, which will keep you up to date with the latest hot topics. Scroll down the list and see if there’s anything you’re interested in or know about, and get writing.
3. Newsletter subscriptions
Writing about what we know and interests us is usually easier than having to research. So one way of capitalizing on this is by subscribing to newsletters based on your favorite subject areas. Whenever a newsletter arrives in your inbox, open it up and scan the subtitles. These can provide very useful ideas for writing a new article.
4. Anniversaries
Wherever you live in the world, every month is likely to hold some sort of anniversary or publicly celebrated occasion. This provides ample opportunities to provide a steady stream of timely articles.
For example, Easter. This could encompass anything from the origins of celebrating Easter, to ‘how to make your own chocolate Easter Eggs’. And these type of articles will be of interest to people, year after year.
To expand on this, try searching for remarkable events from the past and write an article to coincide with the next time the date rolls around. Sites such as Datesinhistory.com allow you to click on a date which then brings up lists of events throughout the ages, which are great for triggering article ideas.
5. People watch
People offer a never ending source of ideas for topics to write about. Just walk down any busy street or sit in a café, while pretending to read a newspaper, and listen to the conversations around you. Find out what people are talking about. This can help you write about topics that people are interested in and will want to read.
Staring at a blank piece of paper or an empty screen is probably not going to overly inspire you with ideas to write about. But following some of these tips should go some way to helping you come up with suitable topics to write about.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment