Rebecca Renner on Finding Story Ideas
and charging $1/word
If you read about “pandemic dreams” way back in April, then you might be familiar with Rebecca Renner’s work. Her National Geographic article was shared and discussed all over the place, as so many of us were experiencing bizarre dreams while our conscious hours were on lockdown. Her story opened with Ronald Regan visiting a comic book shop and went on to offer explanations from experts on why our dream states were so creative and inspired during quarantine. She’s also written about surfing with sharks, python hunters, and the real reason Millennials and Gen Z are the ones spreading COVID-19.
Somehow, between all of her ambitious reporting, Rebecca’s found time to build a Twitter following of more than 120K. I was curious about how Twitter works into her professional strategy, and where she finds all of these great story ideas.
So let’s get to it. Writers, meet Rebecca!
Rebecca Renner on story ideas, Twitter, and charging more
BR: Has building an engaged Twitter audience been a conscious effort on your part? How have you gone about that?
RR: Yeah I have worked at it. I don’t know if I necessarily have great engagement. But it’s been a goal to build that up. Early on in my writing career, someone told me that you can’t be successful at this if you aren’t already famous. So I figured, ok, I don’t have an audience yet so I’ll go out and build one. And I’ve just slowly worked at it.
People think Twitter is this magical broadcaster where you can go on there and say, here’s my latest story! And people will just automatically engage with that. But that’s not at all how it works. It has to be a conversation. You can’t show up, tweet something, and disappear. You have to stick around and put in the work to build relationships.
You have to find people who you connect with, and have real conversations. Seek out people whose work you admire, and talk to them. And hopefully they’ll like what you do, too.
Do you feel like the platform plays a significant role in your career as a writer?
I think it has played an important role—especially in connecting with editors. Editors hear from so many writers. And if they know your name when you pop up in their inbox, that really helps.
Your work spans so many ambitious topics. Can you talk about where or how you find your ideas?
I write about what interests me, or what I want to know more about. A lot of my ideas come from questions I have and I want answers to. So I go looking for those answers. Sometimes, I have the answer, and I think it’s this really obvious thing but no one is talking about it. So I find out if I’m right about this thing, and then I write about that.
Another approach that’s working really well for me lately, is coming up with a story that I’m not sure exists yet. I’ll wonder, like, wouldn’t it be cool if this were true? And then I go find out if it is. Or I think about a story with a character before I know if that character exists. And then I go try to find that person. That has worked really well for me.
Is all of your work journalism or do you also do other kinds of writing?
I actually got started in fiction. I’ve written a few novels that I’m slowly editing with my agent, but that’s mostly on hold lately.
Journalism has made me a significantly better writer. So when I go back to my fiction now, it’s so easy to see that my older stuff isn’t as good. I’m a much better prose stylist now, because with journalism, you have to be. You have to get it right on the first draft.
A friend of mine was editing a short story of mine recently, and they were making all these cuts and they were like “I’m so sorry, you put all this work into this and I’m just cutting.”
And I was like, no I didn’t! I had just gotten so used to having to write great prose on the first try that my first draft read like I had worked over it for months. I know for a fact that doing journalism sharpened my prose. If you turn in a first draft to your editor at a magazine and that doesn’t at least have nice sounding prose, your editor is going to be like, “Get out of here.” Working with great editors has also been huge in improving my writing.
Do you find it challenging to piece together enough assignments to make freelance journalism sustainable? What makes it work for you?
I did at first. And I still occasionally have some bad months. But things changed when I started demanding higher rates. When I started to freelance full-time, I wrote for just about anything. Last year, I decided I wouldn’t take less than .50 a word. And then this year, I decided I wouldn’t take less than $1.
It’s too much work otherwise. I hear how much some freelance writers are working, and it makes me tired just to think about it. I couldn’t do it. It’s just not sustainable, at least it wouldn’t be for me. If you’re grinding out articles for .15/word, you’re going to burn out. But when you make your way up to these higher rates, you can actually spend the time you need on a story.
Some people will say, well my beat does not offer those rates. And maybe this is insensitive, but change your beat then!—what I mean is: broaden your horizons a little. Find where your beat touches other higher paying ones and try to find work there. I used to write about books, but that just doesn’t pay well. Now I write about science and adventure, and the rates are there. If you want to make this career work, you have to find the topics you can cover that pay well.
Paying my rent and health insurance comes first for me. And I’m able to do that because I write about science and adventure, and I’ve found I can make good money writing about those things.
Did you have to work towards that expertise in science or did you just jump right in?
Well I do have a bachelor’s degree in biology. So that helps. But honestly, there is so much information available out there. If you’re curious about a topic, you can learn enough online to write about it. Read a lot. Talk to experts. It’s all out there.
Your story on pandemic dreams got a ton of attention. Tell us about how that story came about. Did you pitch it?
I pitched that to a bunch of publications that rejected it at first. And then I figured, might as well go for the big goal publication. So I pitched it to National Geographic and they accepted it.
There were other people pitching and writing that story, as I was trying to find a home for it. That was really stressful and frustrating. But I kept at it, and Nat Geo said yes. And now I’m a regular contributor there so that worked out really well.
Since you’re usually on the interview end of this, what is something you wish someone would ask you?
There is this narrative that you can’t be successful in this field without some kind of trust fund, or someone supporting you. And behind that narrative is an assumption that anyone who is successful must be super privileged or wealthy or something. People make that assumption about me—that I must have rich parents supporting me. I don’t have parents—or anyone—supporting me at all. I’ve worked my ass off. So I think that narrative does us all a disservice. It’s possible to make this work without being independently wealthy. And we shouldn’t make assumptions about anyone.
A big thank you to Rebecca for chatting. You can read more of her work on her website or follow her on Twitter.
Paid subscribers, I’ll be back in your inbox with lots of writing opportunities on Tuesday.
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Stay inspired, y’all.
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