A brief, hopefully helpful lesson in Op-ed writing

To answer Jen's question about op-eds in the comments of my last post, I thought I'd do a full fledged post on it.

The op-ed thing is something I kind of stumbled into. I wrote a column for 4 years for a business magazine in Harrisburg, where my only limitation was to "write something about business, law or politics in PA." Which meant pretty much I could write about damn near anything. From there, I started submitting op-eds to various papers. I've had a bunch in the Philly Inquirer, as well as my hometown paper, the Lancaster New Era, and other papers in Central PA.

How I cast about for a topic is pretty much this: I try to find something that isn't being written to death. Or if it is being written to death, I try to find an angle that isn't being covered. Or if it is being written to death and the angle is being covered, and it happens to be something I can take a contrarian position on and mean it, I'll take the contrarian position. Or, if it meets none of those, I'll just write about something that's personal and I can do with passion. (Which is what I ended up doing on the piece Jen linked to.)

There's a certain formula for op-eds. Usually, they should be 700-800 words. They should take a position and argue it. It's not just analysis, but opinion. Controversy helps. If you write it and half the people think you are brilliant and half think you are a fucking idiot/crackhead/Al Qaeda apologist, you are probably on the right track.

Start strong. Say what the issue is right away. Then spend a paragraph giving history. Then a few giving argument. Take some time to give the other point of view, even if you're just going to knock it down (but be honest about the other point of view. Straw men suck.) Close with a punch.

Do it well, and you too can be Paul Krugman. Do it badly, and you too can be Ann Coulter.
And yes, lots of newspapers pay. It may not be much (the wealthy Knight-Ridder corporate coffers pay me just about enough to cover the costs of sushi for two) , but it's money. And it's a publishing credit. And you get to piss people off and get paid for it. How cool is that?