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- The Best Pitch I've Ever Received... plus how to use your friends for story ideas
The Best Pitch I've Ever Received... plus how to use your friends for story ideas
Helen Thomson
August 29, 2024
In partnership with
Bonjour!
Hello from the poolside - I’m currently working from a lovely little French village called Ginals.
Last week I showed you one of my favourite pitches, so today we’re going to start with why it was so good.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Halloween after flagging it last week, so there’s a handful of spooky story leads for you to follow up on below.
I’m also going to show you why your friends might be the solution to a pitching dry spell and as always you’ll find my pitch call-out of the week and my pick of upcoming events to attend.
This week (very excitingly) the newsletter is in partnership with 1440, whose mission it is to share fact-driven information about the world. The more of that the better, so do check it out:
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Now, without further ado, here is a pitch from the wonderful David Robson, which I received while working as Head of Features at New Scientist.
“Our understanding of depression is at a crossroads. Since the 1960s, the “serotonin hypothesis” has been the leading explanation of the disorder. It made sense – the neurotransmitter is thought to be involved in regulating our mood, and most of the antidepressant drugs that we use were thought to raise the levels of serotonin washing around the brain. Dissent has been growing for some time, however, and in late July, a bombshell paper – analysing data from 17 systematic reviews and studies – concluded that there is no good evidence that impaired serotonin signalling results in depression.
Whether serotonin is completely irrelevant for the disorder, or whether it might still be important for a small number of cases, remains a matter of debate – but it now seems certain that low levels of the neurotransmitter, alone, cannot be the primary cause. So what else might explain patients’ symptoms?
Over the past few years, psychiatrists have identified several other potential pathways, including the ideas that depression is caused by brain inflammation, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction in neurons, and reduced neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. Potential cognitive mechanisms include the proposals that depression results from negative processing biases – resulting from impaired executive function – and problems with mental time travel that results in feelings of helplessness and impaired problem solving. Many of these pathways will be interlinked to a certain degree, but the precise interplay may differ from person to person – which would explain why the experiences of depression can be so varied among patients.
SSRIs, the most common form of antidepressants, may already work on these pathways, which could explain why they are effective in some patients, even if serotonin itself is not involved in depression. But with this new understanding, it will also be possible to find more targeted drugs and cognitive therapies. These new theories of depression might also help to explain how lifestyle factors, such as diet, influence the risk developing the disorder – and might result in better guidelines for preventative medicine.
This piece will examine the state-of-the-art in depression research and the ways this new understanding will benefit patients.”
And now, the reasons I loved this pitch:
In the first sentence I immediately know what the pitch is about and why it might be interesting.
He quickly includes a concise bit of background to help explain why the subsequent meat of the pitch is important.
In the first paragraph I’m told that something has recently happened that has completely shaken up our way of thinking. This ticks an important ‘why are we writing about this now’ box.
There’s mention of debate surrounding the idea he’s pitching. This immediately tells me that the story will be able to engage the reader by following an intriguing narrative with ups and downs. Debate is an example of ‘a progressive complication’. This is a narrative tool in which a problem occurs that the protagonist has to solve, it’s often found near the beginning and again three quarters of the way through a novel or movie, but is also a great way of driving a feature along.
The pitch includes enough information to show that the writer has done their research, knows exactly where the story will go and how it gives the reader cutting edge information about the topic.
It doesn’t ask any questions. Editors don’t want questions, they want answers. Questions normally suggest that you haven’t done enough research. If you don’t know where your story is going to end, how will your editor?
It has a positive message. Noone likes to read something that is going to build to a crescendo, point out a problem and then leave the reader hanging. Always make sure your pitch has a surprising or satisfying conclusion. (Caveat: sometimes you may want to leave your reader with an unanswered question, but only when you’ve satisfied their initial curiosity and delivered what you’ve promised at the beginning).
It is filled with links supporting all of the writer’s claims, which helps an editor fact-check the pitch and gain a better understanding of how good of a fit it is for their publication.
It’s a topic that is relevant to so many people. Niche subjects can work as long form stories, but something that affects 280 million people is hard to ignore.
It’s nicely written and has it's own internal narrative - this gives me confidence that the writer will be able to deliver well-written copy.
There are lots of other things editors look for in pitches (more on this to come in a future newsletter), but this one ticked so many boxes, it was an easy commission. David was actually doing some holiday cover at New Scientist when he pitched this story, so he ended up editing it while a staff writer - Clare Wilson - wrote it. Together they did a wonderful job, and the story became one of New Scientist’s best selling features of the year.
TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS
A really good tip when you’re trying to come up with ideas is to chat to your friends. Scroll through your WhatsApp messages, go for a drink, start up a conversation with someone you haven’t spoken to for a while.
Why?
If your friends are interested in something, it’s likely other people will be interested in it too. A great example of this was when the ‘phone-free childhood’ debate started in the UK. My WhatsApp groups were awash with people debating the subject using ill-informed opinions and anecdotal evidence. One of them asked me ‘can you give your nerdy scientific opinion on all this?’ [I’ll try not to take offence!] That lead to commissioning a feature which took a cold, hard look at what we really knew about the impact of phones in childhood.
Similarly, during covid, every single one of my family and friends were asking questions about the virus. All of these at some point turned into news articles in which I got experts to explain the answer.
The latest chat in my girls group is a bunch of memes about how we’re all going to outlive our husbands and what hypothetical house we’re going to build to live in together when we’re 80. I know this is already happening in the UK, there’s the odd Guardian article about it, but where else are people doing this? The 60+ population is getting bigger - there’s loads of aspects of this trend that can generate stories.
A travel guide of the most extraordinary care homes in the world, a profile of an architect designing homes specifically for the older generation, a trip around the most amazing house that an 80-year-old has built for themselves and their friends (It’ll exist somewhere!) What about the tech that you can use to make your own home more old-age friendly?
Gif by AllBetter on Giphy
SPOOKY LEADS
As promised, here’s a bunch of papers that might make for a creepy story or two to pitch for Halloween:
OK, so this only caught my eye because of the title. I have no idea what this crop disease actually is, but for the name alone, might be worth digging into.
I love anything to do with archaeology and our amazing new technologies that reveal secrets of the ancient world. This paper appears to describe the identification of a stomach cancer identified in a mummified man, the oldest and most unique example of this we’ve found so far.
Gif by boomerangtoons on Giphy
What believing you’re a werewolf reveals about consciousness This case study is from last year and doesn’t work alone, but I’m endlessly fascinated by lycanthropy, which is the misidentification of the self associated with schizophrenia. Or to put it simply, a condition where people think they’ve turned into different animals. In this case it’s a werewolf, but there are reports of people believing they are snakes, bees, dogs and all sorts. I’ve seen a person with this condition ‘transform’ into a tiger first-hand when writing about it for my book. Case studies are rare, but perhaps we have enough now to help us explain more about how consciousness and the sense of self arises.
GO TO:
The European Respiratory Society Congress. This one is next week so take a look at the programme today. While you may not be able to go in person there are loads of good talk titles that might spark ideas, and interesting people to get in touch with. Some highlights include ‘New insights into how to treat the common cold in children’, ‘The effects of vaping and ability to exercise’, ‘Is AI better than a trainee doctor in solving a clinical case?’ and ‘How laughter may actually be the best medicine’. All of these could be pitched as news stories to a variety of magazines and newspapers.
PITCH CALL OUT OF THE WEEK:
Here’s one from Gilead Amit at the Economist who is looking for pitches from freelance science and technology writers. I’m not familiar with their rates, but know they pay their staff well so I would assume it should be a fairly lucrative gig.
Pleased to say these temporary editing responsibilities have now become permanent. Very open to hearing from any freelance writers who’d like to see their work in our pages. Email in bio.
— Gilead Amit (@gileadamit)
4:12 PM • Aug 18, 2024
Right that’s it from me - I spy a Lillet spritz. I hope this has sparked some ideas and as always if you have any questions about freelancing or pitching, email them to me at [email protected] and I’ll do my best to answer them. Next week I’ll be explaining the difference between a news story, an opinion article and a feature, and revealing the top 5 boxes you need to tick when trying to sell any story.
Happy pitching everyone! x
Who is Helen Thomson?
I don’t like to blow my own trumpet but I’m an award-winning journalist with almost 20 years experience. I started my career in entertainment reporting, despite having a BSc in Neuroscience and an MSc in Science Communication. I soon became one of the family at New Scientist magazine, working on the news desk as a reporter and commissioning editor before stepping into the freelance world to write my first book. “Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through The World’s Strangest Brains” was a Times Book Of The Year in 2018, and an Amazon Best Seller.
My favourite endorsement was from Ed Yong, who said “in beautiful prose, she seamlessly dances between conversations with nine extraordinary people and beautiful explanations of how the brain works… remarkable.” Thanks Ed!
While I was freelancing I also wrote for many organisations, including the BBC, The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, The Daily Mail, Forbes, Nature, Psychologies and more.
After seven years freelancing I returned to New Scientist as Head of Features, commissioning long-form writing, and now I’m once again back in the freelance world. You can find out more about me here, or if you’re feeling generous buy one of my books here.
Outside of work I live in South East London with my two wonderful kids and husband, and will always say yes to a. wine, b. wild swimming and c. a Bonjovi concert.
