WRITING THE LEAD

The lead of your story is your introduction. Written to get your readers attention,
the lead serves two purposed: to draw the reader in and to introduce the topic of
the story. Here are 10 different types of leads and examples:

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Quote The easiest lead to write, the direct quotation lead begins the story with
a memorable quote.
I was so freaked out by reading my short story out loud at the Coffeehouse, but
when I got a standing ovation and my mom started to cry, it was worth all of the
anxiety, senior Wanda Reader said.
Question This lead uses a question to draw the reader in, where the story
begins with the answers to the questions. While this lead is easy to write, and is
often overused, it should be used sparingly and only when the question get at the
heart of the story.
Example: Are you feeling incurably lazy? Constantly fatigued? Plagued by chronic
apathy? All of the above? If you answered yes, you might be a victim of senioritis.
Shock This lead catches the reader off-guard with an unusual or shocking fact.
The school cafeteria served up 6,000 pounds of French fries, 8,000 hamburgers
and 15,00 slices of pizza every month.
Allusion literary, historical, or mythological, an allusion refers to a well-known
person, event, line, song or situation. An allusion lead should be obvious enough
that most of your audience will recognize it.
Example: Neither sleet, nor snow, nor hail, nor sectional postponement could hold
back the girls soccer team as it capture third place in the Lake Suburban
Conference and ended the season with a 12-4 record.
Teaser The teaser lead intensifies the readers interest by holding back the
main point of the story for a few sentences of until the quote.
Example: when the bell rang, senior Betty Roberts followed the crowd of
underclassmen into the locker room. She quickly changed into her uniform and
left the giggling girls behind. Ten minutes later, she jogged a lap around the track
to warm up. Five minutes after that, she found herself in a harness, hanging 15
feet in the air on the high ropes course.

Narrative This lead creates a situation that can be either real or fictional.
Similar to the descriptive lead, the narrative hook allows for more creativity on
the part of the writer.
Example: An icy wind whipped through sophomore Johnny Atwoods jacket as his
snowboard flew off the rim of the half pip. He grabbed the back of his board, and
then completed two and a half-inverted rotations before he slid back down onto
the packed snow.
Descriptive Based in the sensory details of a scene, a descriptive lead paints a
vivid picture with words and details so the reader can imagine the situation.
Example: As the buzzer signaled the end of the second period, sophomore Pete
Smith hobbled towards the bench, dragging his hockey stick behind him, one
hand on his aching hip.
Compare/Contrast This lead points out opposites or extremes.
Example: Before first period on September 3, the freshmen searched for their
classrooms as mice search for cheese in a maze.
Exclamation This lead consists of an exclamatory sentence frequently set off
in a paragraph by itself. It is usually used for extremely striking information or big
news.
Example: State Champions!
That all-too-often hard but never-quite-attainable phrase came true this
year when Coach Dom Trips varsity basketball team captured the state
title for the first time in the schools history.
Atmosphere An atmosphere lead consists of a group of words or phrases that
help to portray the setting or mood for a reader. Used only when the setting or
mood of an event is interesting or significant.
Example: In senior heart is a memory of four long yearsof dashing madly to
classof sitting on senior courtof walks along the back driveof finally driving
to schoolof senior promof graduationof friends we know and friends well
miss.