They want to work with writers – be they on staff or freelance – who routinely come up with interesting ideas for stories that are perfect for their readership and then deliver on said stories with minimum drama, maximum efficiency, on deadline and free of factual, grammatical and spelling errors.

That’s the gist of what three leading business editors had to say when they talked during a recent teleconference hosted by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW).

The editors, Al Scott, managing editor of the Puget Sound Business Journal; Dave Kansas, chief markets commentator and former European markets editor at The Wall Street Journal; Derek DeCloet, a business reporter and editor at the (Toronto) Globe and Mail, and Bernie Kohn, a business editor at Bloomberg News, conducted the hour-long teleconference to help editors of newspaper business sections, business weeklies and other business news publications do their jobs better.

But it was easy to flip what they were saying on its head and use it as an instruction manual for how reporters and freelancers could do their jobs better too.

Based on their advice, as well as some of my own, here are 10 things you can do to make editors fall in love with your work, regardless what you write about:

1. Craft story ideas with a publication’s readers in mind. Make sure story pitches answer the question: why would the readers of this publication care? You can be sure editors read your pitches with that question in the back of their minds, so take the guesswork out of the process, and build the answer into your query. If you play your cards right, you might be able to use it as the nut graph in your story (more on that below). “If budget lines get (editors) excited that’s a good sign,” Scott says.

2. Don’t be afraid to talk. Some editors prefer to talk over ideas or completed manuscripts by phone, others prefer email and yet others like to keep an IM channel open on days they’re doing line edits so they can quickly ask questions and get answers on your story without having to check email. No matter what method they prefer, don’t be afraid to talk to an editor. One five-minute phone call can mean the difference between being frustrated by an assignment (or editor) or not.

3. Include a nut graph. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing 250 words or 2,500, include a explainer paragraph fairly high up that describes what a piece is about and how it fits into the overall context of a topic. Both help explain why readers should care, and as a result, read what you’ve written. For short stories, the nut graph can also serve as the lead. If you can’t explain in one concise paragraph what the story is about and why readers should care then chances are the premise of your article isn’t fully baked. If that’s the case, the editors suggested trying to explain what the story is about in 25 words or less to a friend or family member. And if all else fails, ask for help. “The challenge for nut graphs is the biggest in stories that writers are very close to, or on subjects that are moving very quickly,” DeCloet says.

4. Stick to simple story structures. To a person, editors on the SABEW teleconference call said they preferred longer stories written in chronological order v. structured in any other way. They’re easier for readers to comprehend.

5. Don’t skimp on details. Besides a strong lead and simple story structure, one of the most important elements of good storytelling is detail, and that comes from good reporting. The A1 stories that the Wall Street Journal is famous for depend on it, Kansas says. “The internal joke is that we want to know what they ate for dinner and the color of the clothes they were wearing….to show the thesis unfolding v. just telling it,” he says. “That’s very challenging for organizations to have enough time to do that kind of reporting. But at the end of the day, you need strong reporting.”

6. Submit stories with headlines and decks. By including a headline, even if you don’t have to, you show an editor you know what the story’s about and that you’re creative and helpful. Many news organizations have eliminated copy desks and now rely on editors and writers to come up with headlines and decks. By writing your own, you’re making your editor’s job that much easier, which will give them that much more time to spend on other things, like giving you more assignments.

7. De-”was-ify” copy before turning it in. That’s the term one editor on the call created to describe how he regularly goes through his reporters’ stories to remove  instances of passive voice. Once your story’s finished, read it through one more time to make sure everything’s in active voice, and to check on grammar and spellings.

8. File stories in a publication’s preferred format. Some publications don’t care whether you write in 12 point Times New Roman or 14 point Arial or if your paragraphs are indented or separated by a line of white space as long as your story is in on time and free of errors. Others need stories to fit into a specific format because it makes it easier for them to load into their content management system. Find out what your editor prefers. If you’re filing directly into a content management system – which is becoming more common – make sure you follow any rules about character counts for headlines or decks or for adding links, meta tags and other SEO elements.

9. Don’t get defensive about rewrites. To a person, editors on the SABEW teleconference said they go out of their way to handle requests for rewrites so as do to the least amount of damage to the writer’s work or ego as possible. Some use the sandwich method – praising what they can before and after pointing out what needs to be reworked. “It’s a tricky thing if you’re dealing with something the reporter has a strong emotional investment in,” Kansas says. If you know you have to have a difficult conversation with a writer, “steel yourself by reminding yourself that you’re the reader’s agent,” he says. “They may be your writer, but in that conversation you represent the person who’s picking up the paper, magazine, or reading the wire service and if you put yourself in that mindset and ask questions that start with why, how and what, you’ll extract some answers that will help (the writer) focus.”

10. Stay in touch. If you write for a publication on a regular basis – or even if you want to – check in with your editor(s) on a regular basis to let them know the status of any stories you’re working on and any ideas that you’ve come up with since the last time you talked. Editors would prefer to know in advance if you’re having trouble lining up sources, coming up with a lead or running into other snags. And by sharing ideas, you can get their input on the angle or direction of a story you’re thinking about pursuing. Of course the latter may not work with every publication you work with – especially if you’re afraid they’ll take your ideas and assign them to other writers. But it’s the way editors operate with their in-house writers, so by copying that process you’ll be a team player.

Speaking of nuts, we’ll kick things off looking at a little nut with a big impact.

I’m of course talking about the nut graph.

The nut graph is so important, you’d think writers would lavish as much attention on it as they do a story’s lead, opening quote or conclusion.

And yet, nut graphs remain tough nuts to crack, pun definitely intended.

A story without a nut graph is like a walk in the woods without a path: you know you’re going someplace, you’re just not sure where.

The nut graph supplies that direction. It tells readers, ‘This is what this story is about, this is why you should care, this is why you should keep reading.’

Writers’ overall deficiency in this area hit home recently as I’ve been doing more editing work and reading first drafts of stories that lack anything approximating a nut graph.

It’s not just me. A few weeks ago, an editor friend said she’d spent an entire day imagining herself the nut-graph queen – tiara and all – dispensing nut graphs with a tap of the wand and a click of the keyboard to every story that had entered her email inbox.

The nut graph – a term near and dear to the hearts of cranky old newspaper editors worldwide, and a lot of young ones too – is actually a misnomer. It could be an entire paragraph. Or it could be a simple sentence. Especially in short pieces – like blog posts – a nut graph could be a simple declarative sentence spelling out what the writer intends to do in the next 300 or 400 words.

Here’s an example. The big buzz this week is about new smartphones introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show, so here’s the 23-word lead of a 266-word Mashable story on a new Motorola phone. In this case, the lead also serves as the story’s nut graph:

Motorola has a new Android smartphone out, and judging by the looks of it, it’s going to be one of those love-it-or-hate-it devices.

After the lead, the story goes on to describe what the phone looks like and what features potential users might like or dislike.

Sometimes, lack of a nut graph signifies a bigger problem. If a writer has trouble figuring out what to say in a nut graph it could be because they haven’t figured out what the story they’re writing is about. A nice trick for solving that an editor once taught me: find someone unfamiliar with the piece you’re working on. Then explain to them, as concisely as you can, what the story is about and why they – or any other potential reader – should care. If you can summarize the piece in a sentence or two, you (a) have a good grasp of the idea and (b) should be able to turn what you just verbalized into a nut graph.

Writers also have trouble deciding where to put a nut graph in a story. In short stories, the lede and the nut graph could be one in the same. In a good old-fashioned inverted-pyramid news piece, the nut graph should follow the opening who, what, where, when and how information and serve as the story’s “why.”

In longer news, news features or feature stories, the nut graph could follow the lede by some distance, but not be buried so deep the reader gives up before figuring out what the heck he or she is reading about. The exact placement depends on the length of the story. In a feature of 1,000 or 1,500 words, the nut graph could follow the lead by five or six paragraphs or even less. But a 10,000-word New Yorker epic might lead with a 1,000-word introduction before the getting around explaining what the story is really about.

It’s fashionable to poo-poo the need to even have a nut graph in a story. Call me old-school, but I don’t buy it. With so much other information competing for a reader’s attention, it’s up to a writer to make it as easy as possible to figure out what’s happening and why they should care. In this way, it’s different from fiction, where the author can have fun confusing the hell out of the reader before slowly revealing what the story’s about.

Nut graph essentials: weave a reasonably concise explanation of why the story matters into the fabric of a piece up high enough to hook the reader into hanging in there through the rest of the piece.

What writing basics would you like to know more about? Share your request so I can include it in the Back to Basics series.

I’m still here.

I’m still looking at traffic stats.

I’m still reading comments, and sometimes even replying.

I’m still thinking of blog posts.

But that’s just it. I’ve been so busy lately with my editing day job the only thing related to this blog I’ve been doing is thinking.

I’m too pooped to post.

The editing job should settle down a bit over the Christmas holidays. When it does and I have some more time, here are the posts you’ll see from me:

• In praise of the nut graph – small, powerful, elusive and 100 percent unavoidable – why are you so hard to master?
• I love writers who… – a 180 from a post I wrote awhile back on the editors that writers love. Based on the last month, I have much to say on this subject.
• 2009: a freelance writing year in review – a horror story with a happy ending.
  
• Digital media trendsetters to watch in 2010 – The usual suspects, plus a few surprise picks.
• To incorporate or not to incorporate – That is the question to ask your accountant.
• A media incubator wish list – Portland freelance journalists are huddling this week to continue plans for a coworking space dedicated to indie writers. If you were going to design your dream shared newsroom, what would be in it? If you’re already working in such an environment, what do you love about it, and what do you hate?

Readers, which of those subjects should I tackle first? If there’s something else you’d like to read on WordCount in coming weeks let me know.

Sometimes you can build the answer to “why” into a nut graph, a paragraph that succinctly summarizes the ramifications of the issue you intend to address in the piece. If you’re doing a short piece, you need a short nut graph. If the article you’re writing is longer, giving readers that perspective could take a couple paragraphs. Since they’re some of the most important paragraphs of the story don’t bury them – they should be positioned fairly high in the piece. But don’t ignore them. if you do, it’ll be the first thing your editor points out when he or she emails your story back to you for revisions.

Over my career I’ve had a few extremely good editors drill this into me either consciously or subconsciously – thanks Mike Hewitt, Jonathan Weber and Robin Doussard – but I still have to make a concerted effort to write the “why” into the stories I do.

But if I can get someone to pay $2,000 for a bottle of wine on the strength of a 200-word catalog description, I figure I can explain just about anything.