What kind of leads do readers like?
Business stories can be challenging for writers. The Producer covers a lot of financial stories, whether it’s politics, the economy, commodity prices or even fund-raising by local communities for a certain venture.
How can our staff present the facts but also make the stories interesting, starting with the crucial lead to draw readers?
Journalists were told by the writing coach of the Dallas Morning News that people like non-threatening leads.
“Use common rather than academic language,” Paula LaRocque suggested.
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She also told writers not to be afraid to address the reader directly, using the pronoun “you.” It makes the lead more reader-friendly, she said.
“That assures me that the writer is a human being like me, within the world that I live, and isn’t going to become so obtuse (in) the subject that I’ll be lost,” she said.
It’s also okay to ask the readers questions “but don’t ask the question in the lead that a reader will instantly respond, ‘no’.”
LaRocque explained it’s psychological, and readers prefer rhetorical questions or ones they can say “yes” to – they can relate to the story and will be more likely to keep on reading.
For example, she said the worst lead
she saw in her paper was: “Want to be a nimrod?” That’s not good prose, she said. (Few would recognize the word. Of biblical origin, it means “hunter.”)
If the story has a direct effect on readers, consider that as a lead, she urged.
Also, “put difficult or abstract numbers or concepts into perspective,” LaRocque warned. “Just numbers lying on a page mean nothing.”
Humor can also be used to catch attention when simplifying a difficult concept.
An example of a good science lead she saw was “Its name is bond. Hydrogen bond.” Readers familiar with the famous 007 secret agent from James Bond movies would be hooked.
