Lede (Lead) or Follow
Mysterious, compelling . . . it drew her in, and she was incapable of resisting its force. She gave herself over to the experience, rolling the words over on her tongue like wild blueberries and cream. It was the best lede she'd ever read, and she wanted to savor it.
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You may ask yourself: "The best WHAT she'd ever read?" Well, let me explain myself. This is a blog about writing good ledes. What's a lede? In some circles, it is spelled "lede" and in others, "lead." I'm going to stick with "lede," so that you don't think I'm talking about the housepaint that kids and pets should avoid, or those balloons that don't go over so well. A lede is the beginning of a piece of writing, usually a feature, news article, or personality profile. It could also be the opening sentence on your Web site or the first paragraph of your departmental brochure. First impressions are everything, and a lede has to be good to keep readers' interest.
What are the elements of a good lede? First and foremost, the lede should pique a reader's interest, draw that reader in and make him or her want to read more. It should set the stage for the story or message in a compelling way. The lede should have the right tone for the piece of writing it represents, too. You want to give the reader a hint of what is to come, much like a book cover sets the tone for what is inside. However, you don't want to be totally predictable. Often an effective lede can set up readers' expectations and then surprise them in the next paragraph with something completely unexpected.
It may seem obvious, but always start the lede (or any sentence, for that matter) with the most interesting information. (In fact, don't start a sentence with the words "It may seem obvious.") You don't want to start with the year something happened, but with what happened followed by the year. For example: "In the year 2000, the drumbeat fears of an apocalyptic millennium began to surge through the country" is a lot less effective than "The drumbeat fears of an apocalyptic millennium began to surge through the country in the year 2000."
Like velvet or sandpaper, mayo or mustard, plant or animal, heavy metal or elevator music, a good lede engages you through the senses. And you know a good lede when you feel, taste, see, or hear it. Allow me to share Exhibit A: a few good ledes I've read recently.
From The New Yorker, a story by Malcolm Gladwell about "the dog whisperer" Cesar Millan:
"In the case of Sugar v. Forman, Cesar Millan knew none of the facts before arriving at the scene of the crime. That is the way Cesar prefers it. His job was to reconcile Forman with Sugar, and since Sugar was a good deal less adept in making her case than Forman, whatever he learned beforehand might bias him in favor of the aggrieved party."
It is the style of this lede that is so effective. Gladwell starts out his story as if it is a Raymond Carver detective novel. The reader's interest is piqued: who is Sugar? Some underworld moll with no self-confidence? And who is Forman? The prizefighter? In the next paragraph, you find out that Sugar is a beagle out of control, and Forman is her owner.
Or this lede, from an article by Paul Cullum in the magazine StopSmiling: The Magazine for High-Minded Lowlifes:
"Werner Herzog, one of the masters of world cinema, was born in the small town of Schrang, near Munich, in 1942, in a section of Bavaria still dotted with storybook castles erected by the mad King Ludwig II."
This is a sentence that sets the stage expertly for the biographical article that follows it. The reader understands immediately what the article is about and is given a great deal of very intriguing context for what is to be learned by reading on.
My final example, from an article by Paul Collins in The Believer magazine, titled "Let Us Now Gaze, Famous Men," about a guide to rare books about death masks:
"Thomas Paine keeps staring at me from this old book, his nose bent to one side like an aged boxer's. He's had a tough life and an even tougher afterlife. I've spent the last few years pursuing his bones: they were stolen in 1819, and since then have reappeared everywhere from a New York sewage ditch to a Paris hotel room, with occasional stopovers inside statues and pieces of furniture. As I pursued the skull and bones of Paine, perhaps it was only a matter of time before I crossed paths with this book by Laurence Hutton, the man who once possessed Paine's face . . . not to mention Franklin's, Lincoln's, and Aaron Burr's faces too."
There is so much compelling, wonderful detail in this lede, and the intriguing macabre hook of a quest for bones draws the reader in and makes you want to read more.
Without a good lede, you will lose your readers. With a good lede, you won't be able to get rid of them, and they'll be disappointed when your writing comes to an end and they must leave the livingroom of your imagination. Writer John Barth says, "A first sentence's job is to draw its reader into the sentence after it--while at the same time, maybe establishing the tale's tone and narrative viewpoint . . . some do that job so well that they remain in our memory long after we've forgotten most of the words that followed."
