Magazine writing tips

For those of you who didn't make it to last night's workshop, here are some tips for magazine writing:

KNOW THY PUBLICATIONS. Tailor your story pitches to the magazines for which you want to write. If they don't do music or movie reviews, there's a reason why (and it's not because the right person hasn't come along to write them), so don't send them pitches of that nature. If an editor has never heard of you before and you don't have a track record for doing good work, you won't get a feature on your first try. Untried writers should start small by submitting pitches for the front of the book. If you do those assignments well and cultivate your relationships with your editors, when you pitch ideas for features or departments, you may get the assignment.

SET THE SCENE. A magazine story is about description. Describe, describe, describe. Use your five senses to put your readers in your shoes. Check out this description of the way former Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas laughs from an August 2000 article about him in New York Magazine:

Frank's laugh: It's a trickster's sound, a jeer that cuts deep. First he rolls up his shoulders and cranes back his large, angular face, which, despite all the wear and tear, remains strikingly handsome, even empathetic in a way you'd like to trust but know better. Then the smooth, tawny skin over his cheekbones creases, his ashy lips spread, and his tongue snakes out of his gate-wide mouth. Frank has a very long, very red tongue. Only then the soundtrack kicks in, staccato stabs of mirth followed by a bevy of low rumbled cackles. Ha ha ha, siss siss siss. For how many luckless fools like Tango was this the last sound they heard on this earth?

You can see and hear that, right? That’s what you want.

KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS. Some people are great at writing; others are better at copy editing. Know what suits you. Just because you’re one doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the other, too. One may be a superb fact checker/researcher but may not actually be good at writing. Play to your strengths. There are people who have made careers out of being fact checkers and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. There are lots of jobs to do at a magazine.

YOU’RE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST STORY/STORY IDEA. Crappy story ideas equals no assignments. No assignments equals no clips. No clips equals no work to your name to advance your career. Get comfortable with coming up with well-researched story ideas, ones that have a real hook. Get even more comfortable with the fact that most of your ideas are probably going to get rejected. Of 100 ideas, about 95 will get thrown back. It’s not personal. Don’t get discouraged by this. Start seeing the world with “magazine eyes” and you’ll find a story in just about anything!

WRITING REQUIRES TEAMWORK. Your editor is not your enemy. If you have this kind of relationship with your editor, it’s because you think your writing is perfect the way you turned it in or that person is a tyrant who needs to change copy in order to feel better about him/herself. Good editors doing their jobs properly only make your stories better. Communicate with your editor as much as possible about what he or she expects to see when your first draft comes in. It may be a tough, awkward, uncomfortable conversation, but it’ll save you a lot of time and headache in the long run.