Hello!

Did you know that 1 in 5 people in a coma who seem unconscious are in fact aware of their surroundings? That’s the incredible, and let’s face it, massively terrifying, story I’ve been writing about this week for New Scientist magazine. I’m also working on an idea about the perfect walk…

Ideas are my favourite part of being a journalist. They tend to come pretty easily to me, and I’m often asked where I find them. The truth is, there’s no magic answer, it’s a combination of many techniques I’ve developed over twenty years of reporting and commissioning.

In this series of weekly newsletters, I’m excited to share everything I’ve learned about generating great ideas as a freelance writer. Each week you’ll receive a bumper load of ingredients to help you develop your first (or hundredth!) pitch. I’ll also throw in some ideas that I don’t have time to pitch myself, provide leads for fascinating people to speak to and events to attend, and give you plenty of tips on how to generate your own ideas. Plus, don’t miss my pitch call-out of the week, highlighting an editor who really wants to hear from you.

If you’re a new freelance writer hoping to get your first idea commissioned, or an old-timer who finds themselves in a dry spell, look no further than The Ideas Factory to get those creative juices flowing.

So without further ado…

PITCH THIS NOW:

Post-orgasmic illness syndrome. I’ve heard of a lot of strange conditions in my time as a health reporter, but there’s always something that takes me by surprise. Sensitivity is key here - health reporters shouldn’t just report rare conditions for the sake of it. Can this research tell us anything about how the immune system works in people more widely - and why it sometimes goes wrong?

AI is fighting illicit trafficking of cultural heritage goods. Fancy digging into the world of smuggled works of art and classical antiquities? This paper doesn’t seem to have got any pick up yet, so it’s yours for the taking.

Why your microbiome affects your mental health This is a must do for anyone interested in mental health. This team appears to have discovered a new link between the brain and the microbiome, which helps explain why stress changes your microbiome, and vice versa. I’d pitch this story immediately if I didn’t have too much on this week already!

The real reasons behind the UK’s sudden increase in knife crime. With 27 stabbings in 15 days, what’s behind this sudden spout of violence on our streets? It’s worth someone asking the numerous experts who research knife violence to give a clear-eyed view of what’s going on. This can also be expanded out to include other countries as knife crime has recently been called “a global epidemic”.

SPEAK TO:

Over at Anthropic (my favourite AI company of the month) there’s a whole bunch of people trying to protect us from the dangers of artificial intelligence. They’re called the Adversarial AI team. They recently discovered that AI’s can be trained to deceive us, and that they’re exceptionally good at it. What new tools are they developing to protect us from future dangers? How do they test AI’s for those that could go rogue? And what are their greatest fears for what AI’s might do next? It seems like someone should talk to them and report back from the frontlines…

THINK ABOUT:

ELECTION FEVER: The US election is providing plenty of fodder for reporters from all beats. If you’re into economics, psychology or maths, keep an eye on the recent Arxiv economics papers - there are studies there that reveal a whole lot about why voters vote in certain ways in certain climates and lots more info to to turn into timely news stories. Combine it with behavioural research from MedArxiv and you’ll be able to pitch even better analyses of current events. Remember: these papers haven’t been peer-reviewed, so find external support for their findings if you’re going to write about them.

WHATS IN A NAME? Speaking of the election - there is so much talk going on about how to pronounce Kamala Harris’s name, but it occurred to me that the media never just refers to Kamala Harris as ‘Harris’ as we do Trump, Biden or Obama. There’s got to be some psychological (and likely sexist) reason for that, and perhaps a behavioural/linguist psychologist could offer an interesting perspective on it for one of you?

DO THIS:

I did x for a year and this is what happened. Set yourself a challenge today, and write about what it taught you next week, month or year. This is a well-trodden path that seems to have recently come back into fashion. Lifestyle magazines in particular lap it up. It can be fun too… Tamara Fuentes went to the cinema by herself for a year to get over a friendship breakdown and sold the story to Cosmo, Jenny Knight returned to competitive sports after a 25 year break and told Observer readers what it taught her about resilience, while Elmira Tanatarova took one for the team by trying cricket mince for the Daily Mail, allowing her to reveal why we should all be turning to insects for our protein hit.

I’m currently in the middle of a three month challenge of my own… but sworn to secrecy for now.

GO TO:

WHAT IS MODERN PAGANISM? If you can get yourself down to London next month, here’s an event to put in your diary. Professor Ronald Hutton will be giving a Gresham Lecture all about paganism and what it can offer the modern world. Sure to spark an interesting idea to be pitched to a Sunday magazine.

Barnard’s Inn Hall, London. 18 September 2024, 6pm.

FUTURE FOOD TECH Here’s a show that has several interesting speakers and topics to report on. There are talks about what foods are disrupting the market to provide sustainable alternatives to raw ingredients like sugar and cocoa. There’s a talk about how AI is helping us discover new foods, and another looking at natural food alternatives to GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic.

(PRO TIP: Even if you can’t attend in person, looking through agendas is a great way to spark ideas, and you can always give the speakers a direct call to find out more.)

London, 2-3 October 2024.

FOLLOW THIS TREND:

Here’s an idea I will never gate-keep - the more people writing about this the better. WOMEN’S NEUROSCIENCE. Never even heard of it? Yeah, there’s a reason for that. It basically doesn’t exist right now. Last year, Emily Jacobs revealed in Nature that only 0.5% of neuroscience studies look at female health. I’m making it my mission this year to write about as much women’s neuroscience as possible. As a brand new burgeoning area of science, it’s got news, feature and interview stories written all over it.

PITCH CALL OUT OF THE WEEK:

Couldn’t resist saving this one to my bookmarks. The wonderful WIRED team are looking for long-form stories. They pay well.

That’s it from me, check back next week for more story leads and tips. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading, and do let me know if you get any commissions from ideas sparked from The Ideas Factory!

Next week, I’ll be focusing on how to use alerts to generate daily story ideas for a variety of magazines, and reveal the most perfect pitch I ever received as an editor.

Happy pitching everyone x

***If you’ve enjoyed this newsletter and want to buy me a coffee, you can purchase a premium subscription for the exact price of a Starbucks Latte - £3.80. Premium subscribers will receive a bonus newsletter on the 1st of each month full of stories that are ready to be pitched straight away.***