Magazines may be printed on glossy paper, but the need for authenticity is apparently almost as popular as the suddenly ubiquitous desire to simplify.

Two magazines - one new, the other a venerable brand undergoing an editorial revamping - are vigorously pursuing grit instead of glamour. This March, Lifetime Entertainment Services - a joint venture of Hearst Magazines and the Walt Disney Co. - will start Lifetime, a magazine built on the cable channel's formula of "real life, real women." And Ladies' Home Journal is also looking for stories about "real women."

A set of guidelines sent out to potential contributors to Lifetime makes reality sound like a hard place to live. "Emotions Anonymous," a standing feature, for example, will detail "an emotionally charged situation that ends happily," like "I Was Afraid to Leave My House for Two Years." "Secrets You'd Only Tell a Stranger" include, "My Father Was My Lover" and "I Put Myself Through College as an Escort." "Lifetime Friends" will be a "short profile of girlfriends who have helped each other through a tough time. Examples: young widowhood, breast cancer, infertility."

The focus on realism is a new twist on the old "women in peril" platform, where subjects of articles are always busy "overcoming," be it that nasty 20 extra pounds, the surly husband or the illness that threatens their family.

While the themes may be familiar, the guidelines make a big point of insisting that women in the articles have to use their real names and be willing to be photographed. That is a significant departure from many women's magazines, where many of the scandalous subjects in articles sound a lot like 25-year-old assistant editors.

Lifetime magazine, which will have a promised circulation of 500,000, will have to confront some editorial duplication from Ladies' Home Journal, circulation 4.1 million, which is in the middle of an editorial redesign that will add a touch of realism to its traditional recipe of flawless food and friendly families.

In a note to writers that sounds as if it came from Lifetime but in fact comes from Ladies' Home Journal, the editors suggest, "Basically, we're looking for stories about real women." There will be fewer celebrity profiles and more plain old people in the magazine's pages, "women who have made changes in their lives in order to become a different person" and "stories of women who are fighting the good fight."

Diane Salvatore, the new editor in chief of Ladies' Home Journal, said that the magazine was a "119-year-old brand that we are refreshing, and I doubt there will be any confusion over what we are doing with Lifetime or any other magazine: We are reaching out to American women and asking them to tell us their stories."