The Creative Drought: When Stories Run Dry

Published in The Memory Times

As a features editor, I've always prided myself on finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. But lately, I'm staring at a calendar that stretches ahead with alarming emptiness, and my usual wellspring of human interest stories has run dry.

The challenge of finding compelling narratives during these slow periods is something we rarely discuss in our industry. We're supposed to be the storytellers who can spin gold from straw, who can find the human element in any situation. But what happens when there simply isn't anything happening?

Features journalism thrives on the unexpected twists of human experience—the single mother starting a business, the elderly man learning to code, the community coming together after tragedy. These stories don't just appear; they require a certain cultural energy to emerge. Right now, that energy feels dormant.

I find myself scrolling through old contacts, revisiting sources I haven't spoken to in months. "Anything new happening?" I ask, knowing the answer before they speak. The rhythm of daily life has become predictable, and predictability is the enemy of compelling features.

The creative edge that makes features unique feels particularly elusive during these droughts. Our readers expect us to deliver lifestyle and cultural content that reflects their world back to them in interesting ways. But when nothing new is happening culturally, how do we maintain that edge?

Last week, I found myself pitching a "retrospective" on a story we covered just six months ago. It's a desperate measure—repurposing old content with a new angle. I've instructed my team to look for "evergreen" stories we can update, to find seasonal angles we might have missed, or to explore the "behind the scenes" of stories we've already told.

We're trying creative approaches: reaching out to different demographic groups, exploring subcultures we haven't covered before, even considering stories from neighboring communities. Each pitch meeting feels more like a brainstorming session for content creation than a journalistic endeavor.

The pressure from management doesn't help. "Features still need to drive engagement," they remind us in weekly meetings, as if engagement is something we can manufacture without authentic stories to tell. I find myself defending the integrity of our section while simultaneously scrambling to fill pages.

What readers don't see is the emotional toll of these creative droughts. Features editors are storytellers at heart, and we're frustrated when we can't find the stories worth telling. We value the human connection that our work creates, and there's nothing more disheartening than publishing content that feels hollow.

Perhaps this is the real test of a features editor—not just finding stories when they're abundant, but maintaining journalistic integrity and creative standards when they're scarce. For now, I'll keep looking, keep asking, and keep believing that somewhere in this quiet period, there's a story waiting to be discovered.