Thread by @NicolePasulka

Hi. I’m the new senior features editor at @Cosmopolitan. I put out a call for pitches last week and got an incredible response. Thank you so much! Now, I want to drill down a bit and give some more context on what we’re looking for. 1) STORY!...

The biggest reason I turn down a pitch is because it focuses on a topic or an idea rather than a story. Stories have narrative action and memorable characters. They tell me very specifically about something that happened to actual people. They have plots. 2) Surprise!...

So maybe you’ve got a narrative with good characters, but does the story play out basically the way I’d expect it to? This is so hard, because there are a lot things we *should* know about, but the way to make those issues or stories appeal to a broad audience....

....is to tell people something unexpected and surprising. In this vein, if it’s a story we’ve seen many times before or something that we’ve covered a lot, it’s probably not going to work for us. 3) Audience!

Our target audience is women under 35. That’s a huge and diverse group of people, but there are things that just don't matter to them. I know this is tricky, and if you’ve got something that meets the other two criteria, shoot your shot, absolutely!

4) For the most part, we don’t publish personal essays, op-eds, or trend stories in the features section. Those do have a place at Cosmo, but I’m not the right editor for those pitches....

...Some features have a first-person perspective, but those typically contain lots of original reporting and narrative. Ask yourself–does my piece have a narrative and characters, or is it an exploration of a “topic” or “idea”? If it’s the latter, it’s not right for us.

Hope this is helpful. Please keep pitching me (nicole [dot] pasulka [at] hearst [dot] com) and if you have questions, feel free to ask--just @ me here, I don't read DMs. I was a freelancer for over a decade, I get how frustrating and confusing it can be.