Friday, March 4, 2011

Without The Lede You Have Nothing

What’s the easiest way to get people to read my article? This is a question that many journalists ask themselves, but can’t always answer. The truth of the matter is that without a good lede, most people won’t want to read your story. A lede is the first sentence or paragraph that you read in a story and is crucial to the development of the story. But what makes a good lede?

The best ledes are the ones that are short and convey the information that everyone wants to know right off. This is generally the who, what, when, where, why and how of the storyline. It sounds very daunting to put all of that into a paragraph, let alone a sentence, but believe it or not this is the easy part. The hard part is to make this information readable. The lede should not only be informative, but interesting as well. Instead of just rambling off all the facts, add some flow and originality to it. Don’t just write what you think everyone else is, try to branch out and make it your own. If there is a lot of good quality information and originality in you’re lede, it is sure to captivate your readers and get them to read more.

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