Sunday, November 2, 2014

Leads and Transitions

Leads.  Earlier this week I found myself getting really frustrated at the different categories of leads.  But then I reminded myself that this is a college course.  And as such, part of college courses is memorizing the theory behind these things so that you can get them right on the test.

Now honestly, is it really going to matter if you know the difference between the types of leads unless you end up in a career as a journalist or editor?  I don't have the answer for that, it might.  I suppose that even as a freelance writer you'd want to have some sort of skill that proves that you indeed had been educated on the matter at one point.

I think that the trick is to not over think it, just know the main rules of what a lead is.  All you're trying to do is grab your readers attention with some sort of overview of what the complete story is about, and how that story is being presented.  If your story ends up being some hard news thing, then just know that a summary lead is what you need.  Hard news equals summary lead.  Are you doing a story on a person?  Then an anecdotal lead is what you want.  Do you want your readers to know that some sort of impact is being made on the community?  Then use an impact lead.  Example: "Weber State students will have a very difficult time finding parking on campus for eternity due to a new psycho amount of construction combined with an already defunct parking pass system."  Bam, impact.

Just remember your five W's and keep it under 40 words or so and you should be just fine.

1 comment:

  1. I also enjoyed learning about the different types of leads available to writers. I found that the anecdotal and the descriptive leads can often be intertwined. When a writer is introducing a lead about an individual, a good level of description often comes along with it. It is these kind of details I learned while learning about leads this past week.

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