Science Writing Meta: The Story Behind My Stories (4)

In late 2018 I got my first feature assignment. I felt suitably pleased with myself.

Most editors aren’t hostile to receiving feature pitches from less-experienced writers. Nor have I encountered any editorial policy of refusing to accept pitches from writers with < x years experience.

It’s a hard sell, though. Feature articles come with a higher rate of pay…so from the viewpoint of an editor they’re more expensive, thus fewer opportunities are available. They take time to research and write, and it certainly takes an editor more time to comb through 3,000 words and provide comprehensive feedback. An editor doesn’t want to assign a story to a new writer, wait 1 month for them to deliver the piece (during which time they may have to decline or delay other pitches) only to wade through 5 pages of text and realise there’s serious problems.

Having those 3-5 clips is not just about establishing your experience; from the perspective of the editor it’s risk mitigation. You (the writer) are arguing that you can deliver what you are promising.

For this reason, my advice when pitching your first feature: be unimaginative and disingenuous.

You may be someone like me who is crackling with ideas of varying quality but excessive variety. Or you’re desperate to break out of your boring wheelhouse. However, your first feature pitch should be on a topic well within your expertise. Either it’s on the same topic as something you’ve already written about as a short news article or opinion piece; or it’s a solid part of your education background (“I have a PhD in this/I did research on this”). I don’t mean that the idea should be unimaginative and disingenuous, only that your argument to the editor about why you should write it must be. Once you succeed at the first assignment you can pitch more imaginatively, because now it’s clear you can write features.

Which brings me to my “safe topic.” I’d started my science writing career at a student newspaper, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. While a postdoc I became Editor of the university’s Postdoc Science Writers Magazine. I was 100% qualified to write about student newspapers. The Open Notebook explicitly asked for pitches about breaking in to science writing (so I knew I was pitching an article that fit the venue).

My pitch to the editorial team. 

The pitch (above) was accepted. With hindsight and a bit more experience, it would have been better if I included the names of people I planned to interview as sources. Source-chasing is the hardest part of the article development process. People are flaky. Experts in the field have crammed schedules, weeks of international travel and 30 minutes availability for a phone call at what turns out to be 2.30am on a Monday morning in your time zone (Australians are great…just don’t make me interview them). Many publications want a minimum number of sources per feature, so your great article idea will fail/be delayed if you can’t get enough people to talk to you. Having a list of source email addresses ready to copy and paste into messages the instant your pitch is accepted will make the deadline so much easier to meet.

That’s a digression. My feature article got through development, editing, fact-checking and copyediting. It may not be a viral sensation or accumulate heavy website traffic, but for a small audience it hopefully will prove to be useful.

I bless the rains down in Atlanta

Don’t bother with waterproofs in Georgia. Get caught in a summer thunderstorm and you’re getting soaked. Waterproofs just leave you at the uncomfortable ‘partially-damp & itchy’ level of wetness. Let the rain soak you instead: it’s less like being under a warm shower; more like floating in a warm bath. I’ve been caught in those thunderstorms when I was out walking. The sidewalks turned to rivers – I splashed along up to my ankles in lukewarm water. Atlanta drivers – oblivious at the best of times – sent plumes of water breaking over me as they passed. By the time I got home to towel down the rain had stopped, the sun was pounding down, and half the deluge had already evaporated.

Southern thunderstorms are quite something. I love them.

***

I’m dealing with a professional upheaval right now. I’m not in a place where I can talk about it (yet) because (i) I don’t want to jinx the good stuff (ii) hindsight makes it easier to write an intelligible account that people would actually want to read.

Anyway. Here’s a bullet point summary of the things I’m balancing that I can talk about:

• Communication & Marketing for Women in Bio-ATL. They’re a professional organisation bringing together all “bio” and “bio-related” folk for networking/professional development. I’m creating event flyers & email promo.
•  Emory Postdoc Science Writers Fall 2018 magazine. I’m reprising my role as Editor for a “microbiome”-themed issue. It’s great to see the postdoc team grow in confidence with their science writing: tackling unfamiliar topics, longer article forms, letting their personalities come through (we’re often taught to repress personality in our academic writing).
• Wikipedia Fellows Women in Science cohort. There are several programs trying to boost the representation of female scientists on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia Fellows program is being rolled out by WikiEdu, targeting scientists who belong to professional organisations (e.g. the American Chemical Society). So I’ve been part of a summer program learning how to edit Wikipedia – something I’ve never thought much about, but is easier than I imagined. I’ve expanded several “stub” articles, and created a brand new Wikipedia entry for a scientist in my field whose omission from the platform was suitably glaring.
• Freelance science writing. I had an article idea I felt inspired to pitch to an online science magazine. Much to my surprise I received a reply several days later encouraging me to submit the full thing. It’s a beast: I’m chasing down scientists in 4 countries for interviews, and collecting lots of crunchy numbers to back up the point(s) I’m trying to make (not all of the information is displayed to the public). This kind of science writing exercise gives me a massive kick – it’s stressful, but it activates so many regions of my brain at once. I can only hope the article inside my head eventually matches what I commit to writing.

***

It’s a busy time. Evidently I like being busy. You’d hope I would.

Beneath the bubble and frenzy is an undercurrent of fear and anxiety. I’m trying to reposition myself into a new professional lane, aware that I don’t have the luxury of unlimited funds or time. I’ve also got plenty of handicaps that make getting what I want harder than it would be for others. The stakes are higher in some of the projects than others. If my freelance article gets accepted it’ll make it easier for me to successfully pitch future stories (editors always look for previous published work).  If the article is killed it brings me back to where I was before, with an additional dent in my self-confidence. It’ll also decelerate my income flow, which is I need to keep a tight watch over.

I know the point I lose confidence and momentum is when I’ll fall. So I’m pushing forward and filling up my Moleskine planner with reminders, deadlines & To Do lists. It’s been several years since I wanted to fight for a city with the ferocity I’m fighting for Atlanta. That alone tells me I should fight harder.