GETTING WORK

Bob Z

When it comes to writing what is most likey to get you work? short stories? comics? plays? film/tv?

smcgiff

If by work you mean accepted and published ... short stories in Magazines, though by no means easy, would offer good possibilites to get published.

Comics would be a very closed shop, unless there are some start up comics that might accept submissions.

A fraction of plays written get produced - a good deal harder than getting a book published, which as we know is no easy task.

Film/TV would be difficult to get into also.

If by work you mean getting a living wage... then by a lottery ticket

Bob Z

What magazines accept short stories?

pog it

Bob there are opportunities that come up every once in a while to write tv scripts for TG4. Yes it'd help if you were famililar with the features and dramas and the type of station it is but on the writing of it side you could get yourself a translator to help you go through translations of your work.

It's a great opportunity. You'd need to be fluent for the courses, but they run courses alongside a new call for work from new writers.

The last round was for Northern Ireland based writers on the theme 'Stigma' as it was BBC in conjunction with TG4 and I'd love to have qualified for it but they were strict on your being from that region. But the next round should be open to the whole island.

pog it

On the journalism side, you only need to write something that is good enough for the newspaper you are targeting, and pitch it to the editor. Doesn't pay fantastically well!

Bob Z

thanks for the replies

EileenG

Feature articles for newspapers. Papers need a huge amount of stuff to print every day, and if you are original, accurate, professional and write well, you'll get published and paid.

Bob Z

EileenG wrote: »

Feature articles for newspapers. Papers need a huge amount of stuff to print every day, and if you are original, accurate, professional and write well, you'll get published and paid.

Do you mean local papers or national? What sort of stuff? Interviews? politics? Local History?

EileenG

All papers need them, but the daily papers are a better market, simply because they need six times as many as the local weekly papers.

To start with, go for interesting feature stuff. One of the first I wrote was about the different receptions my friend's guide dog got in different places in Dublin, ranging from "No dogs (so no blind people) allowed" to "Have a huge discount for having a guide dog". I was on some stupid quiz program on RTE (which I lost) but I wrote up a feature on what actually happens behind the camera on a show like that, and it was printed.

As you get more experience, you can do things which involve more research and interviews. The main thing is to have something original, keep it interesting, and make sure you are supplying what the editor wants. If you have a good idea, ring the editor, say what you are thinking about, ask if he or she is interested, when they want it, and how much they will pay. And make sure that's what you do.

No-one will steal your idea, if it's really original, it's cheaper to pay you to write than to get a staffer to research and write it. But if it's not that original, there's a good chance someone else has already been commissioned to do the same article.

If the editor says "Send it in", make sure you send it on time and with the right number of words.