LEDES

Also known as leads. Also known as “the beginning of

your story”

IN THE BEGINNING

A strong beginning draws in the reader and holds

the reader.

It’s the hook, prime real estate

There are many different ways to start, and most

writers will try several different beginnings before

finding the best one.

For some reason, many writers find that the second

paragraph should usually be the first one.

STRAIGHTFORWARD/SUMMARY

PARIS — In a cultural twofer that makes it Frank

Gehry week here, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, a

private cultural center and contemporary-art

museum designed by Mr. Gehry, had its official

inaugural ceremony on Monday, attended by the

French president, François Hollande. At the same

time, the Pompidou Center across town is giving

Mr. Gehry, based in Los Angeles, a major career

retrospective, his first in Europe.

—New York Times Oct. 21, 2014

THE WHOLE STORY IN THE LEDE

Less than a year has elapsed since Oxford

Dictionaries declared “selfie” its word of the year for

2013, and though many people regarded selfies as

an art form long before that the time has clearly

come for formal recognition. Visionaire, a publisher

that produces pricey limited editions (which it calls

issues), is devoting its current issue, Visionaire 64,

to works by the conceptual artist John Baldessari,

who has used celebrity self-portraits provided for

the project as his raw material.

—Ibid, NYT, Oct. 21

SCENE & DESCRIPTION

“Lindsay Lohan moves through the Chateau Marmont

as if she owns the place, but in a debtor-prison kind

of way. She’ll soon owe the hotel $46,000. Heads

turn subtly as she slinks toward a table to meet a

young producer and an old director. The actress’s

mother, Dina Lohan, sits at the next table. Mom

sweeps blond hair behind her ear and tries to

eavesdrop. A few tables away, a distinguished-

looking middle-aged man patiently waits for the

actress. He has a stack of presents for her.”

—Times Magazine, January 10

ANECDOTE FROM AN INTERVIEW

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip—The images of so

many houses destroyed, so many bomb blasts,

even so many bodies wrapped in burial shrouds

can begin to blur together, indistinguishable. But

Belal Khaled, a young photojournalist and painter in

this southern Gaza town, saw symbols and stories

in the smoke all around him.

—Artists’ Work Rises From the Destruction of the

Israel-Gaza Conflict, NY Times, Oct. 21

A PROVOCATIVE QUESTION:

“What is the solution to affordable housing in New

York?”

—Trading Parking Lots for Affordable Housing, NY

Times, Oct. 21, 2014

AN IMAGE

“Passersby of the Standard hotel on Manhattan’s

Washington Street will encounter an inflatable

rainbow structure of indeterminate shape,

beginning this week. At night it lights up like an

alien pod that’s just set down from a planet located

in the artist James Turrell’s high-school locker.”

—”What Is That Glowing Orb in Manhattan’s

Meatpacking District?”, Vanity Fair, September,

2014

A QUOTE

“IT’S A MOVIE in which you never forget you are

watching these actresses,” director Olivier Assayas

said at the press conference following the

screening of his magnificent Clouds of Sils Maria, a

film that explores the unstable boundaries between

performing and being. “These actresses,” who were

seated stage right from Assayas, are Juliette

Binoche, who plays Maria Enders, an internationally

renowned star, and Kristen Stewart, as Valentine,

Maria’s personal assistant...

—ART FORUM, “New York Film Festival, Dispatch

5,” Oct. 11, 2014

PERSONAL ANECDOTE

In the 1990s, some seven years before Sofia

Coppola released “Lost in Translation” — and we

got to watch Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray

transact disassociation in Tokyo — I visited Japan

for nearly a month. The first experience sticks with

me: being locked into the bus from the airport, by

the driver, listening as a fellow passenger sneezed

over and over again.

—IMPACTS! Cute, Grotesque and Almost Perfect,

Adobe Airstrwam, October, 2014

AND THE LIST GOES ON

A good exercise is to try a variety of different ledes: write many different starts

Never feel locked into your first beginning

Your beginning should have resonance throughout the piece

Either circularly (come back to the start)

Chronologically if you start in the beginning

Thematically

All elements mentioned in the lede, if it’s a summary, will make an appearance in the story

For more ideas, check out this gallery of award-winning ledes

Read for “starts”—pay attention to how pieces begin.