This is part 1 of a series of blogs on feature story ideas.

Freelance writers and reporters often face the same question at some point in their careers: Where do good story ideas come from? Whether you are pitching to an editor for the first time or interviewing for a staff position, your ability to generate strong, relevant ideas can open doors—or quietly close them.

Editors are not only looking for clean writing. They are looking for thinkers. They want to see how you observe the world, how you recognize patterns, and how you translate everyday situations into compelling stories readers will care about.

That’s where preparation matters.

The following are sure-fire ideas for snagging an assignment for general-interest and specialty publications. The ideas are meant to be timeless and suitable for a wide variety of geographical locations. When interviewing for a full-time writing or reporting assignment, review this list.

Many editors will test your understanding of audiences and the culture of writing and reporting by asking for a list of story ideas. The editor may prod a potential writer about his or her ideas on stories to determine if you have that elusive spark of curiosity and creativity that makes writers so quirky and fun. This list of timeless feature article ideas may help you get the job or a fistful of assignments or both.

In time, you will develop your own nose-for-assignments, and you will lean less and less on the cooked-up variety, but you’ll have a few squirreled away when you are asked to contribute an idea. Ideas tend to stimulate other ideas, so this list’s greatest use may be to jumpstart fresh ideas and approaches for you and your writing colleagues.

What follows is not meant to replace your creativity—but to strengthen it, stretch it, and give you a reliable starting point whenever opportunity comes knocking.

A

A Day in the Life of …

Do the unpredictable. A day in the life of the lawyer’s secretary, bank president’s secretary, a professor’s secretary, an elected official’s secretary. These gatekeepers know where the bodies are buried. Does he or she have a job that can be left at the office at the end of the day? How about an ice cream vendor, sanitation worker, golf driving range ball collector? How about a mailman, pet storeowner, road worker? Interview a dogcatcher, mortician, shampoo person as you spend a day with them. This idea could be stretched into a series. For the SHOP approach, think secretaries. Remember SHOP stands for Selection, History, Observation and Perspective.

S-Select a secretary as a primary source and mention Secretaries Day.

H-Contact American Society of Corporate Secretaries or Association of Certified Professional Secretaries

O-Spend a day with the primary source and observe that person at work and play. Talk to co-workers, friends, the boss and the clients, citizens or customers.

P-For a different angle, mention the naughty secretary. Remember Anamarie Giambrone of Queens, N.Y.? In 2002, the court sentenced her to up to six years for pillaging $800,000 from her boss, a senior managing director at Bear, Stearns. Giambrone used an erasable ink pen to write out personal checks for the boss to sign. Taking letters, and a lot more. (2002, Dec. 2). Vancouver Sun, p. C1.

Allergies

Find out the most common allergies in various geographical regions.

S-Start with a physician or pharmacist, but the main event will be interviews with patients who sneeze their way through ratty facial tissues and over-the-counter remedies and exotic medicines that can leave the user in a swoon.

H-American Allergy Association (AAA) Founded: 1978. Description: Allergy and asthma patients and their families, health care

professionals, and others interested in problems created by foods, allergies, and asthma.

Disseminates information on diet, environmental control, and other facets of allergy and asthma

advice.

Or

American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Founded: 1943. Description: Professional society of physicians specializing in allergy and

allergic diseases. Sponsors annual two-day postgraduate course and three-day scientific session. Conducts research and educational programs. Maintains speaker’s bureau; operates placement service; compiles statistics

Or

American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy Foundation. Founded: 1941. Description: Otolaryngologists who are interested in the study, research, and

practice of otolaryngic allergy.

O-Spend time with the people who endure a reaction and describe their day-to-day life. What must they avoid? Are there any benefits to allergies? What are the trade-offs?

P-The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology sponsors a Get Smart About Allergies national education campaign. The campaign informs allergy sufferers about how to better manage their disease with help from a family physician or an allergy specialist. The campaign also features an easy-to-navigate web site www.smartaboutallergies.com.

Arm Wrestling

United States Armwrestling Association grew from the World Wristwrestling Championships televised by “ABC Wide World of Sports.” Arm wrestling is organized in 50 countries with 57 different weight categories, right- and left-handed competition, men and women. It is also known as U.S. Arm Sports.

S-Arm wrestle the champ and write about it.

H-World’s Wristwrestling Championship (WWC). Founded: 1953. Description: Conducts wristwrestling championships in divisions ranging

from bantamweight (under 130 pounds) to heavyweight (unlimited). Conducts contests for both men and women. Maintains hall of fame.

O-Be sure to observe the before, during and after of the match. Note the reaction of the fans and non-fans. You may choose to write about your own experience; however, the experience of a novice may make a fun feature.

P-New York Arm Wrestling Association. Founded: 1977. Description: Sports-related group dedicated to the promotion of arm wrestling in the state of NY.

B

Best

Who is the best TV news anchor? Who is the best hairstylist? What is the best cup of coffee? What restaurant or person makes the best pizza? What is the best cup of coffee, ice cream dessert or hair stylist. What restaurant or person makes the best chicken wings or French-onion soup?

Pick a town, region, state or nation and find the answer. It may be fun to do the article on an annual basis. You may have to create a poll to measure your picks or use figures from the chamber of commerce.

S-Who has the best cup of coffee? Try the chain coffee vendors and conduct your own contest using your taste buds.

H-Contact the National Coffee Association of U.S.A. Founded: 1911. Description: Green coffee importers, jobbers, brokers, and agents; instant

coffee and liquid extract processors; roasters and allied coffee industries; exporters; retailers. Promotes sound business relations and mutual understanding among members of the trade, and to increase coffee consumption. Collects and publishes consumer, market and technical information on the coffee industry. Libraries: Holdings: 600. Subjects: coffee, caffeine.

O-Note the routines people use when making coffee. Observe the people who drink black coffee. Do they have similar behavioral quirks? Fashion? Do men or women put more additives into their coffee?

P-As you do your search for the best coffee, make a list of the cost, the name of the product if it is exotic such as “Gut buster” and the cost for one cup. You can compare places and values and provide your audience with a helpful guide on the best coffee for the money. A sidebar can examine the steps to a good cup of coffee.

Bus and rail system

Millions of Americans use buses and rail to commute. What is it like to ride day after day? Do riders forge friendships, or is the assumption that the commute is temporary, and an unlikely place to make friends? What do people do while they travel? What is the etiquette for using a cellular telephone, personal stereo and food? The best interviews may come from drivers, dispatchers and mechanics.

S-Spend a day riding the bus, train or subway.

H-Bus History Association. Founded: 1963. Description: Historians in seven countries interested in motor buses and bus transportation; employees of bus companies; transit and intercity operating bus companies; motor bus manufacturing firms. Collects and preserves historical data relative to buses including photographs, equipment lists, and manufacturers’ specifications. Cooperates with the bus industry to preserve historical archives such as biographies of pioneers in the field.

O-As people board a bus, train or subway, note their traffic pattern. Do they take the first empty seat, angle for a window, or stand morosely to one side? If you had to classify the passengers into categories, what classification principle would you use? List all the activities in which passengers engage? Notice anything humorous? Scary?

P-Terrorism is often associated with aviation, but what about mass transit? The Transportation Security Administration is to assume responsibility for mass transit security including buses, trolleys, commuter rail, van pools, ferry boats and light rail. U.S. mass transithas largely been spared from terrorist attacks, but worldwide systems, including Israeli buses, the Bologna train station and Paris metro, have been hit. How do passengers react to the threat?

Perhaps a sidebar can offer suggestions on ways to be safe. A sidebar could suggest ideas for making the trip on the bus, train or subway more enjoyable. I once read of a man who put his name and address on the handle of his umbrella with a note that said, “If found, keep the umbrella and send me $5.” Periodically, he’d open the mail and find a check with a note that said, “Found your umbrella. Here’s $5. Thanks.” Unfortunately, the new owners failed to change the note and address.

C

Cemeteries

In Paris, on Oscar Wilde’s monument in Pere Lachaise cemetery are the words from his poem, The Ballad Reading Gaol: “Mourners will be outcast men, and outcasts always mourn.”

Visitors continue to troop to the grave more than 100 years after Wilde died in November 1900. Colorful people, both honorable and not, sometimes attract attention even after death.

S-Visit the famous graves in an area and note the epitaphs. Interview visitors and the ground keeper. Talk to the visitor’s bureau and the chamber of commerce and get their anecdotes. Consider making a map and creating a car tour that unites some of these graves by theme.

H-International Cemetery and Funeral Association. Founded: 1887. Description: Owners and managers of cemeteries and funeral homes; related

suppliers and professional service firms

O-Watch the people who visit a gravesite. Do they whisper among themselves? Leave flowers? Take pictures? Sing? Note the condition of the grave. It may be maintained well, but it may be considered one of the many in the cemetery. Note how the famous grave blends in or stands out in the cemetery.

P-Graves are sometimes leased in some countries. What about the United States? Hear about the Mount Rainer woman who sued a northeast Washington, D.C., cemetery claiming that the gravesite of her son was moved without her knowledge? How often does that happen? What do cemeteries do to prevent this kind of problem? What makes a cemetery popular? Is the trend to buy now and die later? A sidebar could explore pet cemeteries.

Accredited Pet Cemetery Society. Founded: 1993. Description: Pet cemeterians. Promotes highest standards of professionalism. Endorses deed restriction of pet cemetery property and meaningful pet cemetery legislation.Offers educational programs on pet bereavement, support groups, and professional business management. Observes National Pet Memorial Day, the second Sunday in September.

Children, classrooms and conflict

Ever wonder if children consider the big questions? With permission, school authorities may allow you to talk to students about the edgy questions facing them. Suicide, drugs, vandalism, jobs, even terrorism may be on the radar. Interviews with students at both private and public schools would help make the article more representative.

S-Spend a day in the classroom. Ask permission to attend class to do the assignments. Perhaps, you can make an exception and use the gonzo approach from Chapter 7, The ethical picture.

H-Association for Childhood Education International. Founded: 1892. Description: Promotes good educational practices for children from infancy

through early adolescence. Conducts workshops and travel/study tours abroad. Conducts research and educational programs; maintains Hall of Fame and speakers bureau. Maintains liaison with government agencies, cooperating organizations, teaching institutions, and manufacturers and designers of materials and equipment for children.

O-Becoming a fly on the wall can lead to valuable observation that will make your article fun to read.

P-Consider the debate over national standards tests for children. In addition, some regions want more programs for children who are considered gifted. University educators can provide a glimpse into the approaches used by other countries. The private-public debate will provide additional perspective into the state of early childhood education.

Celebrity

Consider working with a partner, a radio station, a TV station or an Internet service provider on a celebrity look-alike contest. This idea may work in a church if the congregation is large enough. A college or university may be another venue. A sidebar could examine the names ordinary people share with celebrities. Do you know how many times I am asked if I am Michael W. Smith? I just want to know if he is asked if he is Michael R. Smith!

S-Peruse a telephone book for the names of famous people. Call them and interview them on the amusing, silly or embarrassing comments they receive. Mine for those great anecdotes.

H-For anecdotes and history, try contacting the Association of Celebrity Personal Assistants. Founded: 1992. Description: Individuals acting as personal assistants to celebrities. Promotes professional development of members. Serves as a forum for networking, job referral, and information exchange among members. Conducts educational programs; compiles statistics.O-Spend some time with the source who has a celebrity name. Do they work to enhance the confusion by wearing clothing or using language that may mislead someone else into thinking your source may be the real Phil Donahue?

P-Consider the angle of persuasion. Do people who look like celebrities or share the name of a celebrity receive preferential treatment? Do celebrities have more persuasive appeal than ordinary people? In a 2002 USA TODAY/ CNN/Gallup, almost one-third of the people polled said they felt celebrities were “somewhat” effective in influencing the views of the president and other elected officials. Let your celebrity look-alikes or sources who share the name of a celebrity talk about influence. Allow a source in advertising to offer an opinion.

Christmas presents

Write a holiday article on gifts for types of people. For women who work out, create a gift basket that includes the items she would need at the gym. For the film buff, consider a popcorn box with a movie guidebook, a classic DVD of a favorite movie and a gift certificate to a cinema café.

S-Decide on four packages for men, four for women and four for either gender.

H-Gift Association of America (GAA). Founded: 1952. Description: Retailers, wholesalers, and industry affiliates of gifts, china, glass, and decorative accessories. Sponsors seminars at gift shows and European market tours.

O-Pick some high-end retailers and check for variety and prices. Be sure to do some interviews with shoppers and clerks. Then check some one-of-a-kind shops. Online web sites often have company email contacts that can provide additional information. The people who work this area are often chatty and good interviewees.

P-Consider the tension in giving gifts at work. Check with a source such as Susan Bixler of The Professional Image, a corporate image consulting firm. She found that people who don’t think through the implications of giving a gift to someone at the holidays can accidentally insult the person.

Classified advertisements for babies

Some people use the classified columns in print and online to adopt a baby.

S-Get permission from the newspaper or online service to contact a person who has bought a classified advertisement and interview these people. Work for a variety of sources including single people who want to adopt and conventional adoption agencies.

H-Gift of Love International Adoptions. Founded: 1994. Description: International adoption agency.O-Visit with your interviewees and watch them interact with others. Are other children around? Is there a nursery? Check with a social service agency that handles adoptions and secure a checklist for the kind of environment that the state considers suitable for an adoptive child. How well does the family or person that you interview fit the requirements?

P-Countries such as Canada are exploring open adoptions, a verbal contract between birth parents and adopting parents declaring that both intend to keep contact with the other. The families plan to stay in touch. The Adoption Council of Ontario provides information on this practice, noting that it is becoming more acceptable in private adoptions.

Community events

Some newspapers and magazines include a section on events in the community. Monitor these community calendars for ideas. Journalists and writers are accustomed to reading the legal advertisements in the classified section of a newspaper, but other gems can be found by reading the community calendar for coming events.

Exercising to music provoked an article on a ministry where participants exercised to Gospel music. For this article, the writer arrived early, scoped out the gymnasium where the group exercised, listened to the leader describe her goals and the origin of the idea, watched and even participated in a workout. Following the workout, the writer interviewed participants and collected telephone numbers and email addresses for follow-up questions. The writer provided perspective by interviewing others involved in traditional exercise for their opinions.

A variation on this theme is to do a round-up article on all the novel exercise programs in several areas. Fitness centers offer step aerobics, kick boxing, cycling, Tae Bo and several other classes. Round-up articles include a number of examples on the same topic, such as the most popular exercise programs in different regions in the nation or different parts of the region.

S-Find an inexpensive activity that is offered to the community as recreation and attend, even participate. Try a ballroom dance class for mature adults.

H-United States Ballroom Branch of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Founded: 1904. Description: Teachers of dancing. Has established a uniform method of teaching various forms of dance; encourages higher education among teachers; prepares graduated syllabi for techniques; arranges medal tests in various types of dancing for adults and children; conducts professional examinations. Sponsors area competitions and championships in the international style of ballroom dancing; conducts lectures and professional training programs.

Or

See the United States Amateur Ballroom Dancers Association

Or

Try a website that calls itself the Internet Public Library and includes a number of categories including “Entertainment and leisure, activities of amusement and diversion.”

O-Dance. Describe the way it feels to coordinate motion with mind. Listen to conversations. How do students behave as they wait, as they practice and succeed? How do students dress? Is the atmosphere clubby or awkward?

P-Ballroom dancing is now recognized by the International Olympic Committee as an athletic activity. In ballroom dancing, the four main categories: American rhythm (cha-cha, swing, rumba), American smooth (tango, waltz, foxtrot), international Latin (rumba, samba, paso doble) and international standard (waltz, quickstep, tango).1 Compare this style of dancing with the more interpretative style of college dance clubs.

Complain

What’s the most effective way to get results? In this case, the issue isn’t about complaints within the family, but those vexing problems with municipalities, garages and the other hallmarks for modern life. To narrow the arena of complaints, focus on your city, county or local government and its attempts to keep residents informed. Often these groups publish a list of 1 Garcia De Rosier, T. (2003, February 7). Simply ballroom From the foxtrot to the tango, the dancing boom shows no sign of slowing down. The Times Union (Albany, NY), p. D1.offices that residents can contact for information on problems with storm water, animals, litter, small claims, zoning issues and so on.

S-Spend time with the people of these organizations and develop a list of ideas for strategies to get the job done.

H-International Customer Service Association (ICSA). Founded: 1981. Description: Customer service professionals in public and private sectors

united to develop the theory and understanding of customer service and management. Goals are to promote professional development; standardize terminology and phrases; provide career counseling and placement services; establish hiring guidelines, performance standards, and job descriptions. Provides a forum for shared problems and solutions. Compiles statistics.

O-Visit the municipal building and observe the interaction of residents on issues of concern to them. What approach seems to work and what approach seems to fail? Help your audience see and feel the tension or the efficiency of the organization. For comparison, visit a retail shop and watch the interaction. Do discount stores with a high number of returns seem more or less helpful to customers than the more prestigious retail stores?

P-Among the best strategies for getting a complaint resolved is to talk to the manager, not a clerk, waitress, counter person or whomever is in the first line of interaction.2 The secret is to be judicious; avoid complaining about trivial things. Often, the written complaint works best. For comparison, talk to experts on ways complaining backfires and leads to hurt rather than a sense of restitution.

Catastrophes and crime

Ever wonder what intersection is the most dangerous in your area? In the state? In the nation? Police monitor these issues and can offer suggestions on avoiding problems and recommend solutions for improving the traffic pattern. In addition, police have figures for the most crime-infested block in the area. It is grim business, but a feature article that examines the intersection or block may help your audience avoid trouble when on the road.

S-Visit your local law enforcement office to learn about the most dangerous intersection in the area. Have the person who helps plan streets and traffic flow explain the problem and give recommendations to improve the situation. Explore the budget issues and the problems of local vs. state and federal funding for road projects. Ask about the safest intersection in the area and determine if volume of traffic necessarily translates into inevitable accidents.

H-American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association. Founded: 1956. Description: Professional organization of teachers and supervisors interested in improving driver and traffic safety education in colleges and secondary and elementary schools. Awards honorary memberships to retired persons distinguished in the field. Provides assistance to state departments of education, colleges and universities, state associations, and local school districts. Divisions: Adult Traffic Safety and Driver Improvement; Education of Special Populations; Elementary Traffic Safety; Higher Education Traffic Safety; Secondary Traffic Safety; Traffic Safety Administration and Supervision; Traffic Safety Research.

Or

Alliance for Traffic Safety. Founded: 1960. Description: Educational, trade, and professional organizations having an interest in highway traffic safety. Acts as a forum for exchange of information among members and as a source of contact for state and federal safety officials for reaching participating organization safety personnel at both the state and national levels. Coordinates activities of member groups.

O-Visit the intersection and watch the traffic patterns. When possible, interview some of the drivers including commercial drivers and learn about their strategies. Watch the kind of drivers or vehicles that tend to be vulnerable.

P-Traffic experts often use a severity index where accidents are ranked by points. For instance, in Oklahoma an accident that causes injuries or fatalities scores six points, while one causing property damage scores two points. Totals are tabulated for six months or one year. Compare this approach used by traffic officials to other methods. A sidebar on this idea is to explore crime and punishment. Courthouse records will describe the crime and the penalty. How often does the punishment remain the same for a crime? Does one county vary dramatically from another? Does one state vary dramatically from another state?

This is an excerpt from Dr. Michael Ray Smith‘s book FeatureWriting.net. Used with permission.

Download the entire book for free from our MTI Online resource center.