Where to find the angle? The theme for your article?
In this month's DIVER magazine there are some interesting examples of how an article about a dive site or destination can be made more interesting through the use of a new and compelling theme.
The "So What?" test used by editors (although they may call it something else, or may not call it anything at all!) is there to identify the answers to the, "Why now? Why my magazine?" questions. Having a strong theme which sets your article aside from the competition is what will get you published.
So, in this month's DIVER:
Gavin Parsons writes about wreck diving in Grenada. Not too interesting on its own, but when it's combined with his fascination with monochrome photography, the article becomes far more interesting than a stand alone on diving in Grenada.
The Maldives has been written about so many times I didn't think there was another way of presenting this destination. That is, until David Domoney presented its diving as akin to taking a walk through a park. It helps that David is a gardening world celebrity, but there's no reason why this type of approach wouldn't work for anyone else in any other tropical location.
Four pages about searching for and diving on the U-boat, U 480, is made all the more interesting by John Liddiard, as he follows two brother's adventures as they discover the wreck where their uncle perished. The human interest livens up the article.
You might be sitting there thinking, "but everything has already been written about?" Which is why one editor I know says it's the articles he doesn't know he wants yet that interest him.
Keep writing...
Brendan
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