How to Become A Brilliant Story Idea Magnet

The ways I came up with 21 story ideas to publish in the last 25 days

I started writing for Medium last month, and I made a whopping $1.11 my first month. Honestly, though, I was impressed that I made any money since I had no idea what I was doing here!

I spent a great amount of time studying some of the big names, and I watched a lot of Zulie Rane’s YouTube videos (that were tremendously helpful! Check them out if you are a new writer on this platform.) Most of the more prolific writers on Medium are extremely helpful with their writing tips and suggestions.

For the month of August, I have written and published 21 articles so far. I have gone from about 10 followers to around 250, and I am up to about $15.00 as of today. My goal is to increase my followers and income every month so I too can work from home with my freelance writing.

What I Have Learned So Far

Consistency is key…

I work full-time, Sunday thru Thursday, 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. It took me a week or two to get into the habit of sitting down and writing something every day after getting home from work. Once I did though, the trend of followers and claps started to steadily increase.

If you want to see progress, set up a daily routine that works within your schedule. Stay consistent with your efforts and you will reap the benefits in the long run. But how to come up with something to write about every day?

Story ideas

When I first started writing on Medium, I basically wrote about the few things I knew well that centered around me. They were fun to write, but those articles are not much help or interesting to the average Medium reader.

After digesting some of the hundreds of articles about writing on Medium, a few of the tips from various writers were repeated quite frequently, so I figured those must be crucial pieces of advice. I took those tidbits and put them into practice, and guess what? They work!

Ways to get a serious amount of story ideas:

• Google Trends — one of the very first articles I read mentioned checking out Google Trends. Paying attention to the Trending Searches on Google Trends daily is a great idea because Google has the most updated information on what people are searching for in real time.

One of the first stories I wrote this month was from an idea I got after seeing that Cameron Diaz was currently trending.

• Amazon Best Seller List — another article I read mentioned researching the best seller list weekly on Amazon to see what customers are buying. Amazon is one of the biggest markets in the world, and their updated data on who is buying what is pretty spot-on. In researching their best seller lists, you are able to get as detailed as you want or as generic as you want.

For example, earlier this week I checked out their best seller list for books. Then I narrowed it further to Health, Fitness & Dieting. Wanting to go a little deeper, I chose Children’s Health. And there I saw (at the time) that the top 3 best sellers in that narrowed-down category were all on the subject of children and stress — which is understandable with everything going on pandemic-wise. I decided to write an article to help parents deal with their children's stress.

• Social Media Trending — social media is such a part of our everyday lives now that we tend to not really pay attention to it. Keeping an eye on what is trending in social media can be an excellent source of story ideas. Twitter, Instagram, IGTV, Facebook, TikTok… all of them can offer an array of ideas.

One day I was looking through Instagram, and I stumbled across a video that Jillian Michaels had posted about Himalayan Sea Salt which had over 180,000 views, plus I found it very informative. So, I decided to research her claims and expand on her stance that regular salt is better for you than sea salt.

• Everyday Life — be observant of what is going on around you at all times. Big things, little things, whatever is happening to you or near you is a possible story idea.

I am considered one of the essential workers during these Coronavirus times, so I see a lot of people and situations often at my job. After reading an article that mentioned writing about our everyday lives, I wrote about an incident that happened at work one morning when the manager didn’t show up on time to let us in.

• Pay Attention to Your Own Stats — one of the most common phrases I see in articles published on Medium is “…don’t obsess over your stats.” But one article I read suggested paying attention to which stories of yours do well, then write more in that style or of that subject.

I decided to give this idea a try. I studied the stats on the articles I had written so far this month and saw that the Cameron Diaz article (mentioned above) did rather well, so I chose another movie star that I am a fan of and wrote about her.

That one did well too, so I opted to experiment with another favorite star of mine.

One of the best pieces of advice that I read was to keep a notebook with you at all times to write down story ideas as they pop into your head. Granted, I cannot fathom carrying around a notebook all day. However, I do carry my phone with me all day, so I opened up a Note app and jot down story ideas as they come to me.

I aim to come up with a minimum of 10 ideas a day, which turns into 70 ideas a week. Do I use all 70 ideas? Nope. But sometimes one or two really stand out and get my juices flowing for other ideas when I do sit down to write.

I hope these ideas and suggestions help some of you with learning new ways of coming up with story ideas. I am grateful to the writers on Medium that have shared their expertise, and I only wish I had saved the articles that I mention so I could thank each person individually.

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