Brain Fart! Where to Find Story Ideas

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A worried NewsHound writes:

Prof,
I need help coming up with story ideas... I have a hard time finding stories that interest me. Have any ideas? I know that's really broad, but you're a genius so I figure you'll have plenty! Thanks for your help...

Everyone comes up dry sometimes (ask Emilie and Lee about that in Monday’s class), but there are LOTS of stories out there. The trick is to noodle them out.

I’m assuming you’ve all looked at the story ideas file outside my office door. There are still some decent possibilities in there.

The best places to come up with story ideas is a) out there in the world and, b) in the newspaper (or mags, local TV, etc.).

When you’re out there in the world, you run into people you know who. . .
. . . adopt cats or foster animals for a pet agency;
. . . who sell Mary Kay;
. . . who volunteer at PetsMart on adoption days;
. . . who like to spend Saturdays at the hunting center, shooting skeet;
. . . whose brother shoes horses or is a taxidermist;
. . . who is an expert on Logan Canyon or macrame or Thai cooking....
I was a Kitchen Kneads last week to buy a new pepper mill, and ran into a professor (male) who, it turns out, is quite a chef. That’s one kind of thing that makes a story—contrast and the unexpected: the cop who loves square-dancing; the secretary who’s on the ski patrol at Beaver; the engineering professor who’s an expert chef, etc.

Studs Terkel, the prolific Pulitzer prize-winning author who died at 96 last week, used to say that everyone has a good story to tell, if you can tap into what they’re passionate about. And that’s the key—aside from news stories and people who have interesting jobs, you’re looking for people’s passion. This passion can be positive—joy, happiness, devotion (fishing, roller derby, demolition derby, snowboarding, knitting, caring for the elderly...), or negative—anger, resentment.... What you want is to be able to hear, and transmit to the reader, your subject’s emotion and enthusiasm.

Some people just have interesting jobs—selling wigs (Kate’s story), for example. Or the county animal control officer. Or the director of the Stokes Nature Center. Or about 500 professors at USU who do fascinating research that is crying to be translated to a “civilian” audience, or whose expertise makes them great sources to comment on world events. Or my neighbor, who raises llamas. Or the geology grad student who teaches yoga to keep herself centered....

Looking quickly at this morning’s (Saturday) newspapers, I see these possible story topics that anyone could steal and localize:

From Saturday’s HJ:
. . . the anger over the LDS involvement in the Calif gay marriage ban;
. . . the new maternity leave (but not for elder care) policy at USU;
. . . the Obama puppy story;
. . . Box Elder County voters shot down a plan that would have moved our landfill over there; so now what?
. . . gun-lovers are buying up extra firearms in reaction to Obama’s election, fearing a crackdown on gun sales;
. . . new animal shelter will euthanize animals?

From the SLTrib:
. . . U.S. unemployment up to highest since 1994--what local impacts?
. . . the Rev. Billy Graham is 90 and stepping back from his ministry (talk to USU Religious Studies profs);
. . . prospects for new Obama team (talk to polisci profs);
. . . flu season;
. . . the “dinosaur dancefloor” of fossilized dino prints at Vermillion Cliffs (near Kanab)—just erosion? (talk to USU dino experts?);
. . . Jon Huntsman just hosted the annual Diwali celebration for Hindus;
. . . infertility issues—adoption, in-vitro?

The point here is to use your imagination and stay open to ideas. Write them down when you get them, or tear clips out of the newspaper, and stick ’em in an Ideas file for a rainy day.