Video Game Journalism: Coming Up with a List of Feature Topics

In order to write a pitch, you first need a topic to write a pitch for. So today we’ll be taking a look at how you can transform a news article into several possible feature story ideas. A skill you’ll need to learn if you intend to sell articles to editors. A skill you need if you want to be a journalist, regardless of niche.

Let’s pick a news article like this one. This story is about AI in video games. There’s plenty we can come up with based on this topic. Here are some examples:

• Top 5 video games with the best AI
• Are video games right to have such a bad reputation with AI?
• The worst AI ever seen in a video game
• 10 EA games with great AI systems
• EA games have great/awful AI

Those are just some suggestions, you could probably craft more ideas by reading deeper into the article. Don’t just come up with a single idea, create a long list of possible article ideas for you to select from. By the time you’d designed 10-20 ideas, you should have reached the point where you’re filled with “outside the box” ideas. Ideas that are different to anything currently available.  Ones that stand out and aren’t like other articles because there are no similar articles. This is exactly where you want to be.

The best ideas are ones that stand out from the crowd and are noticed. These are the types of ideas that are easy to sell also. They’re the type of idea that editors are looking for from a freelance journalist.

Let’s do a short self-help task. Pick a news article, any will do. Then list 5 – 10 possible story ideas based on that news article. You could expand on quotes, the title itself or the conclusion if you like. You could post the story link and the ideas in the comments here or you could keep them private, it’s up to you. We can respond with more personal help if you post your ideas and news article in the comments here however.

This post was provided by Clare from Lunawolf Gaming