8 Awesome Ways You Can Generate a Hot List of Article Ideas
I promise you, after this, you’ll never get stuck for ideas ever again
Stuck for things to write about? Right, let’s get that fixed straight away.
Here are 8 ways you can come up with a big list of ideas you’re excited to write about. If you use these regularly, you will never run out of things to write. If anything, you might end up with too many!
#1: Look at your highest earning articles
Do more of whatever is already working.
You’re on here to write great articles that earn money. So, whatever you’ve written that has earned you the most money lately, write more like that. This could either mean a follow-up piece about the same topic, or a different topic written in a similar style.
#2: Look at Quora to see what people are asking
Jon Brosio wrote a great article about this here:
You search for a topic, look at questions you think are worth answering, check out the stats to see how many views it’s got, and if it’s got lots of views then write about it.
#3: Check the news headlines
Look at what’s currently going on in the world. What jumps out at you as interesting or important? Anything that makes you angry or excited is perfect.
Or perhaps browsing through the news sparks a different idea. Sometimes it’s just about getting your creative mind thinking about different things.
#4: Check the WriteHere writing prompts in the Creators Hub
The WriteHere prompts are great for anyone who is stuck for things to write. You don’t necessarily have to follow the prompts exactly. Maybe they will spark something else in you. It doesn’t matter — it’s just about getting your ideas flowing and words typed.
#5: Write shortform articles about your bigger articles
Become a writer for The Shortform. It’s a rapidly growing publication dedicated to articles under 150 words.
Once you’ve been added as a writer, look through your published articles and find any you could write a shorter piece about, then link from that to the longer one. It’s a great way to get additional views.
One way to do this is to focus on just one part of the bigger article. For example, the first thing I published to Medium was 8 reasons why ‘Friends’ was such an unrealistic TV show. I later wrote a shortform piece called Would the friends on ‘Friends’ really have been friends?
#6: Resurrect your badly performing articles
Become a writer for Story Second Chances. It’s a new publication where you can get feedback on articles that didn’t do as well as you’d hoped.
Once you’ve been added as a writer, look through your worst performing articles and write one for Story Second Chances asking for feedback. Not only is it helpful to hear what other writers think of your work, but you will also get some extra reads in the process. You can’t lose.
#7: Browse other Medium article titles for inspiration
Look through what other people are publishing on Medium and see if that sparks any new ideas. If you’re in the mood for writing about a particular topic, browse through a specific publication or tag.
It doesn’t mean you have to write about the exact same things. It might just spark an idea for something slightly related.
#8: Note any new ideas you think of when you’re not writing
Whenever anything interesting pops into my head when I’m not writing, I make a note of it on my phone. I might be out for a walk somewhere and see something that makes me think.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not a fully-formed idea. Even if it’s just an initial spark of something to possibly explore, I note it down. Then later, when I sit down to write, I look through my phone notes and see if any are worth writing about.
BONUS: Turn your long comments into full articles
If you’ve just read someone else’s article and it’s got you all fired up to write a passionate response, stop and think for a minute. Is that comment going to end up being long and detailed? If so, turn it into a new article instead. Then you can write a shorter comment with a link to your article, and in your article, you can link to the original one. Everybody wins!
You’re now an unstoppable article writing machine!
Now you should never again have the excuse of “I don’t know what to write about”. If you explore each of the options above, you will probably end up with the opposite problem — too many ideas and not enough time to write them!
If that happens to you, then you need to prioritize your ideas. I list mine in a spreadsheet, and I assign a priority level to each one:
1: Urgent
2: High
3: Medium
4: Low
I spend most of my time writing and editing my high-priority ideas. I sometimes also write a few medium-priority ones. I haven’t written any of my low-priority ideas yet. But I’m certainly not stuck for things to write about!
More from me…
