Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and in any piece of writing, the place where you spend the most time should be the first sentence.
Journalists often call this the lede. It’s your chance to grip the reader and keep them from clicking away to another article, another email, another book. This is especially important in the age of internet instant gratification. If you’re going to get someone’s attention, you have to do it right away. So how do you write a good lede?
You should start by rewriting it several times. It should be both the first and last thing you work on. If you write a particularly catchy sentence in the middle of your article, consider putting it upfront and making it the lede. Any tidbit of compelling, frightening, startling, or otherwise arresting information should be placed here. The sentence should be short, with no excessively long words.
That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.