by Lydia Martin
“Good ledes need to really be like a punch in the face,” advised Seth Borenstein, who writes for Associated Press and was a panelist at the afternoon session on lede writing at the DCSWA’s 2018 Professional Development Day, moderated by DCSWA Vice President Matthew Wright of the University of Maryland.
The lede is arguably the most important part of any story, particularly news stories or press releases, because most readers will decide whether or not to keep reading based on the first few sentences. To keep the readers’ attention, a lede needs to be both interesting and informative, and most importantly, tailored to the story’s audience.
A great lede for a news story might be terrible for other forms of writing, such as press releases. Writers need to consider the expectations of their audiences. For example, for light, “gee-whiz” science stories, humor is often the most effective way to hook readers. Yet there is less room to be playful when starting a news story—readers expect to be told the news right away!
Press release ledes are even more intense, with no room for flourish, said Nanci Bompey, from the American Geophysical Union. Since press releases are meant to be read by reporters and scientists, there’s no need to spend much time setting things up. These audiences want to know the main findings of a study right in the first sentence.
“Get quickly to the point,” was the advice from Sarah Kaplan, writer for The Washington Post. Even in feature stories, readers shouldn’t have to wait too long to get to the nut graf. Though it might be tempting to spend several paragraphs on scene-setting, it’s important to set up the stakes for the story right away so the reader knows why this news is important.
Bompey agreed, but added, “Don’t overstate it.” In her experience writing press releases, phrases like “first ever” and “unprecedented” are red flags that the writer is puffing up the research.
Ledes are hard work. Each of the writers shared their lede-writing process, which universally involved a lot of rewriting. After several drafts, the next step is to ask for feedback from colleagues who won’t be afraid to mercilessly dissect your wordplay.
“Sometimes it just doesn’t work, and you have to kill your darlings,” Borenstein emphasized. Other tips: take breaks, write it down on paper, and read it out loud. Sometimes it can be helpful to avoid looking at your notes and write the lede from memory—after all, you will probably only remember the most important parts of the story.
In that vein, it can be helpful to write a headline before the lede, summing up the information as succinctly as possible. Borenstein admitted that sometimes he ends up liking the headline so much that he uses it as a lede—and then has to figure out how to write an even shorter headline.
The final takeaway was this, from Kaplan: “People should know where the story is going by the end of the lede.”
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