Brainstorming for story ideas

Katie Johnston Chase of the Boston Globe was trying to come up with a travel/tourism story idea when it hit her: “What's one of the big expenses of traveling? Lodging. What's a way to cut those costs? By swapping homes with somebody.”

The brainstorming session that helped her focus on the importance of lodging costs, led to a story about Bostonians swapping homes to save money while on vacation.

Today’s Tip: Brainstorming by starting with general questions can help you develop story ideas. Follow up on those ideas with sourcing to see if they will work.

Katie describes her next steps:

“I called a home swap company and asked how they were doing during the recession, and the owner said he'd been getting record-breaking numbers since September 2008.

"And a story was born.”