Lecture No 6 (for the students of English Dept of SBBU) Want to write well? Open with a punch, close with a kick

There are two blessings which many people waste: health and free time. Sahih Bukhari, 6049

There are two gifts of Allah that a lot of people have been duped about. A lot of people are deceived about. What are those two? Health and your time. Your free time. Many people you know you’re healthy and you end up doing all the wrong things, not realising one day your health will go. It has to go! May Allah protect us and make it easy for us on that day. And when we are free we just waste the time.

A ‘lede’ is the punchy opening

There are two words that every writer needs to know: lede and kicker A ‘lede’ is the punchy opening sentence of an article. A ‘kicker’ is the last. If you can get them right, you can lift your writing to a whole new level.

Having an immediate impact; forceful.

"His style is journalistic, with short punchy sentences"

The opening sentence or paragraph of a news article, summarizing the most important aspects of the story.

"The lede has been rewritten and the headline changed"

Five tips for a great lede

·         Open with a quote. As in this article in The Economist: “‘The world’s attention is back on your cause.’ That was Bill Gates talking to agricultural scientists…”

• Write 50 draft ledes and pick the best one. This is great advice from Writing to Deadline by Donald Murray.
• Establish a sense of person. For example, in this Wired article: “Adrienne Kish, an astrobiologist at the Université Paris-Sud, is an old hand at hunting life forms in inhospitable environments.” You can also give a sense of place or time if they are more germane to the story.
• Start by stating a problem. As in this tiny Wired review: “The pictures you get from some waterproof cameras look like they were taken underwater even when they weren’t.”

·         Be witty. This is the great trick of humourists like P.J.O’Rourke or Clive James (both excellent writers). Wit doesn’t mean you can’t cover serious topics. Here’s a great example from P.J. “I looked death in the face. All right, I didn't. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I've been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I'm told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it -- as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound -- my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.”

·         Encapsulate the emotional message of the piece. For example, in a recent New Yorker article: “But, then, Fitzgerald was not one to give up on dreams; if he had, he could not have written so beautifully, so penetratingly, about their loss.”

·         Turn the story around. If you’ve been formal, go relaxed. If you’re relaxed, become formal. For example (from Wired), “It takes a clean digital signal from your USB port and converts it to a warm analog music. And it looks as badass as it sounds.”

• Use a snappy metaphor. “Mr. Grubel may be counting on a return to the casino but if regulators have their way, it’s door will soon be shut.” (From the Economist).
• Deploy a quotation. A snappy quote can encapsulate the theme of an article and give it extra life, as in this example from the New Yorker: “’Last year, in Abu Dhabi, a man spent fourteen million dollars at a public auction for a license plate that had only one digit: ‘1.’ ‘I bought it because it’s the best number,"’ he said.”

Cleverly concise; neat.

·         "snappy catchphrases"

A catchphrase is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass media. A word or expression that is used repeatedly and conveniently to represent or characterize a person, group, idea, or point of view.

A good lede invites you the party and a good kicker makes you wish you could stay longer.