How to pick a subject to write about

So you want to write an article? This is great news! Now you'll need to identify a subject. This is our guide to helping writers find a suitable topic.

First thing!

The very first thing to get straight is your mindset. Forget you are writing about business for a moment. The trick is to have fun with the article. Your goal with your article is to inform and entertain, and the second part of this (entertain) is more important than the first. Enjoy the task. Be creative. Be bold. Be silly. Be playful. The absolute worst way to approach any writing job is to think 'Urgh, 650 words to fill'. The reader will sense your mood from your first line.

The rewards of relaxing and having getting creative are galactic. Just look at the TikTok account of Lotus Cars, with 3 million followers, all achieved because the admin has a sense of humour.

This concept is incredibly hard to convey to PRs and companies. The instinct to believe business writing must be dull seems to be hardwired. To companies we say: be brave. To PRs we say, push back on your clients who want to bore. Teach them about clickbait. Tell them about Mr Beast and why he's got 140m subscribers. If you want big numbers for your project you need to entertain the reader.

Now identify your angle

Many pitches we get aren't really pitches. They are just vast subject areas.

Example, "We want to write about SEO". That's a topic. Huge. Too big for an article.

What you need is an angle. This is a thesis or argument. Something you are trying to convince the reader of.

Example:  "We want to write about why the concept of Moz Domain Authority is misunderstood." Yes please. Now that's an angle. Narrow. Tightly defined. The reader knows exactly what they are reading.

So take your topic. And zoom in on the most interesting or controversial take you have on it. That's your pitch.

Ideally your angle should be provocative and challenge the reader to change their mind about a subject. Do not, and we repeat do not, simply state the obvious.

"Can we write about how treating your employees well is important?" Well, no, because no one disagrees.

If no one disagrees you do not have an opinion piece.

"How about how we hire ex-prisoners to run our shops because they work harder than any other group?" Now that is an unusual and interesting pitch - it'll work as an article (and yes, Timpsons key-cutting chain does this).

Sharing expertise is fantastic. Teach the reader something. This can be as small as: "6 small things we do to generate five-star reviews on Trustpilot". The tighter the focus the better.

Model yourself on Adrian Chiles

Want to find a really memorable angle? Here is my (perhaps unexpected) tip. Browse the articles by Adrian Chiles on the Guardian website.

His titles are phenomenal.

"Stuck in a post office queue, all I could think about was how much I hate self-checkouts"

"I recently saw something in a petrol station toilet southbound on the M1 that I can never unsee"

"My fellow Midlanders have decided I am a traitor and should be dunked in Birmingham’s filthiest canal"

One journalist marvelled of Chiles, "It's his world, and we're just living in it." Chiles is original. He zeroes in on a quirk and expands it into an article.

His titles are ultra specific. And immensely popular. Mimic this.

Look at Chiles, or Jeremy Clarkson, or Caitlin Moran, or Dolly Alderton, or whoever your favourite writer is, and look at their titles. Learn from them.

Say the reverse of everyone else

Great writers often say the total reverse of conventional thinking. They find a truth others have missed. Counter-intuitive articles are gold-dust.

Here's Paul Graham, the legendary investor and co-founder of Y Combinator. Now this is a thesis! Which he goes on to justify. Original views like these are why Graham has 1.5 million followers on Twitter.

Or look at Bolt founder Ryan Breslow who gained 100k Twitter followers in four months with cracking threads such as: “12 mindset rules to build a $4B company” and "Be okay being wrong". His stuff is wild and counter-intuitive. Again, learn from these geniuses.

Listicles also work

Great formats for articles: Numbered articles work well. "7 things I learned launching in a pandemic". Speculative thinking can be interesting. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a long-read feature called “The Formula: What if you built a machine to predict hit movies?” - the title alone is terrific. "How I did X or Y" are almost always strong.

Look a detail

Just remember, the secret is to narrow your angle until you have a tight focus.

The Financial Times sportswriter Simon Kuper puts it thus:

“Only one idea per article. I once offered an editor an 800-word article. I told him various brilliant points I wanted to make. He pretended to listen patiently, and then said: ‘Most readers can remember only one idea from an article’ Just make one good point, he said, and buttress it with facts and anecdotes. If an hour later the reader can remember your point, that’s a triumph. Since then I have tried to make only one point per article.”

At Business Age we are open to any and all ideas. If in doubt, be radical. We will never complain that your pitch is too interesting.

When you are ready to pitch email us at: editor@businessage.com