Classifying the Lead

p.1, New York Post, September 7, 2003.

As mainstream Hollywood movies increasingly fail to confront, complex, often unpleasant realities, independent films are rushing to fill the void. And with the war in Iraq threatening to turn into a Vietnam-like quagmire, Errol Morris's documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert F. McNamara, couldn't be more pertinent.

p. 37, "Killing Fields of All Sizes," Arts and Leisure, New York Times, 7 September, 2003

With everything from mountain climbing to massage treatments, this year's A Time For Heroes fundraiser, sponsored by Target and benefiting the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Aids Foundation, made typical fairground attractions seem like, well, child's play.

p. 360, InStyle, September 2003

In this opposite of the summary lead, the writer manipulates his/her story to keep the reader guessing about the main point of the story. It's one way to tease the audience into reading something it might not otherwise choose to read.

Crack law-enforcement agents struggle to break an ingenious code: l2m, omg, w/e, pos.Two special FBI agents stand by patiently. The agents are stumped and hazard wild guesses. The instructors giggle and toss their ponytails.

Clearly the agents have a lot to learn from their teachers, Mary and Karen, two cyber-savvy 14-year-olds just out of braces and grade school.

p. 60, People, September 15, 2003

or (if you can stand the hokiness)

It has all the markings of a fairy tale: a glass palace, a mysterious past, water lilies big enough to support a real-life Alice in Wonderland, and carnivorous plants know to consume creatures as big as rats. But the most fantastic element of all this is that this sparkling structure is real - and that its doors are about to open to the public.

p. 6, A Lustrous Landmark, Restored to Life, Travel Section, New York Times, 7 September, 2003

Alone in his Brooklyn bedroom, a 9-year-old boy dreams Osma bin Laden will crawl through the vent in the roof and get him.

He knows all about the al Queda boss, having repeatedly heard him blamed on TV for the attacks on the World Trade Center.

From his schoolyard in Bedford Stuyvesant, the youngster had also watched the twin towers tumble.

As the nightmares went on, night after night, the boys school marks plunged. He was soon failing more tests than he passed.

p. 15. Nightmare Drags on for Kids, New York Post, September 7, 2003

& a group character lead:

At M.B Smiley High School in an impoverished part of Houston, more than half the 1,650 students live with a painful reality: They are or have been among the 2 million U.S. children with a parent behind bars. Many of the students have been shuffled between relatives and foster care, leaving them feeling unloved and unsafe.

p. 129, People, September 15, 2003

This lead focuses on the place instead of a person, and again often includes the evocative and/or intriguing detail

A sub-set of this lead is the Mood Lead - which attempts to arouse visceral emotions - fear, sadness, empathy, delight, etc. - to prime the reader for entry into story (often used in movie title sequences, for example)

It's 9:50 pm on a warm Saturday night. An unmarked van enters Isla Vista, a Santa Barbara suburb packed with tanned skateboarders and cyclists. Seconds from the beach and the University of California at Santa Barbara, Isla Vista is one of America's hardest-partying neighborhoods: around 20,000 students are crammed into its high-rise towers, residence halls and frat houses.

p. 64, Rolling Stone, 18 September, 2003