The Lede, or How Not to Lose the Reader by Sentence Two

The lede is the first sentence or two of your article. It's spelled "lede" because old newspaper people were weird and wanted a spelling that wouldn't get confused with the lead used in typesetting. Don't worry about it. Just know that when Marge says "your lede is buried," she means your point is hiding in paragraph six, under a pile of sentences about the weather.

The lede has one job. It tells the reader what this article is and gives them a reason to read sentence two. Readers on a phone decide fast. If your first sentence is mush, they're gone, back to the dog in the hat.

The basic news lede

For a news story, the strongest default is boring in the best way: say what happened.

Pull out your lesson 1 card. Your cousin-test sentence is probably 80 percent of a lede already. That's not an accident. You did the hard thinking first, so this part is mostly assembly.

A good news lede usually answers:

• Who did it, or who's affected
• What happened
• When (usually just the day)
• Why it matters to your reader

You don't need all of where, how and why in sentence one. Those can wait a paragraph. Cramming every detail into one sentence produces a lede with the structure of a freight train.

Both work. Version 2 starts with the person reading it and what happens to their wallet. When the news affects people directly, lead with the people. Your reader cares about the council the way they care about the weather service: mostly when it's about to rain on them.

The hall of shame

Marge keeps a file of bad ledes. It's thick. She reads from it at parties, which is why she's not invited to as many parties. Here are her greatest hits, and what's wrong with each.

The meeting happened

"The Pickleton City Council held its regular meeting Tuesday night at City Hall."

Councils meet constantly. That's their whole thing. What did they do? Lead with that.

The dictionary

"Webster's defines 'infrastructure' as the basic physical structures needed for a society to operate."

Nobody has ever kept reading after this sentence. Not once. Not in recorded history.

The cosmic opener

"Since the dawn of time, humans have needed water."

True. Also true of fish. Start in this decade, preferably this week.

The rhetorical question

"Have you ever wondered what happens when you turn on your faucet?"

No. And now the reader feels quizzed. Tell them something instead of asking them something.

The weather report

"It was a cold and blustery night as residents filed into the council chambers."

This is scene setting. It feels literary. It delays the news by a full sentence and tells the reader nothing they need. Unless the cold was the story (the furnace at city hall broke, say), cut it.

The everything bagel

"On Tuesday, after more than two hours of public comment, a presentation from the city engineer, and a lengthy debate that included Councilman Pruitt once again displaying a jar of discolored water, the Pickleton City Council, in a 4 to 1 vote, approved an 18 percent increase in water rates, which takes effect in January and which city officials say is needed to repair aging pipes."

Sixty-six words. There's a lede in there, gasping for air. Find the main fact, put it first, and give the rest its own sentences further down. The jar can have its own paragraph. It's earned it.

The anecdotal lede

Sometimes you start with a person or a moment instead of the main fact. That's an anecdotal lede, and it can be great, if it's short and it points straight at the news.

Two sentences of scene, then the news in the second paragraph. The scene shows what the rate hike means in a real kitchen. If your scene runs four paragraphs before the reader learns what happened, you're holding the reader hostage, and they will chew through the ropes.

Beginners: default to the direct lede. Use a scene only when you have a really good one, from a real person you interviewed, that shows the point better than the number does.

The opinion lede

Opinion ledes have a little more room to play, but the rule stays the same: get to the point fast. Readers of an opinion piece want to know what you think. Hiding your position for suspense just makes them feel tricked when it arrives.

Notice the two strong versions argue opposite sides. Both work. The craft doesn't care which side you're on. It cares that you show up with a position and a fact to back it.

Write five, keep one

Professionals don't write one perfect lede. They write several bad ones and pick the least bad. Write five versions of your lede. Different starting words. One that leads with the people affected, one with the decision makers, one with the number, one with a scene. Then read them out loud and keep the one that makes the most sense to your imagined reader.

Dale the raccoon will tell you all five are terrible. Dale says that about everything. Dale once called a perfectly good sandwich "derivative." Ignore Dale.