You’re going to tell your mission story, so you’ve gathered your notes and decided in which style you plan to write.

Now it’s time to sharpen that pencil, or put fingers to your keyboard and start writing.

Writers refer to the opening paragraph or paragraphs as the “lede” because it “leads off” the story. (There are legends about how the spelling changed to “lede”, and then there is the irony in people who profess to be masters of language giving it such a spelling, but let’s not worry about that. We care about what it is, not how to spell it.)

The lede is the most important section you will write for a couple of reasons:

1. It may be the only part of the article that a reader reads. Studies show that people read less and less these days. Their patience is short. They want the facts and then they move on. If you want these impatient readers to know something important, you need to put it in the lede because they may not read past that sentence or paragraph.
2. Readers decide whether to keep reading based on whether the lede tantalizes them, puts them in suspense, or promises to tell them more things they want to know. If the lede is boring, doesn’t promise more valuable information or stories will follow, or is confusing, they will immediately quit reading.

This blogger explains it more simply: “Readers are like prisoners in a jail break who want to run away from your story. You have to grab them quick in order to keep them put.”

So how do you write an informative or tantalizing lede?

Let’s start with the straight news style.

The straight news lede is sort of like if you accidentally dropped your wedding ring into a pool of alligators. You want to get in, get your ring and get out. Fast.

To accomplish this, you will need those 5Ws (and an H) from your notes.

The straight lede includes most, if not all, of these bites of information in the first paragraph. Some journalism experts say this paragraph shouldn’t be more than 25 words long. Remember, you’re doing this fast.

Here’s an example of a straight news lede:

“From December 27 to January 3, 129 team members represented Southern Nazarene University (SNU) in service ministry in Chihuahua, Mexico.”

Who: 129 team members

What: a service ministry trip

When: Dec. 27 to Jan 3.

Where: Chihuahua Mexico

As you can see, the Why and How are not included. That’s OK. You’re just trying to fit as many as you can into the opening paragraph without making the sentence hard to read. But four out of six is pretty good. And the next paragraph answers the How and Why.

“Projects completed in this year’s annual Commission Unto Mexico trip included ministry outreach through six Vacation Bible School programs for children, presentations of the JESUS Film, and community and park clean-up. The team also helped with construction of a corrugated metal sheeting roof to winterize the district office and several additional construction, maintenance, and painting projects.”

You might have missed it, so I bolded the words that explain the Why, since they’re sort of hidden in there.

Let’s look at another example of a straight news lede:

“February 16 was an exciting day for East Timor Nazarenes. That day they purchased their first piece of land, located in Lospalos, East Timor. In honor of the event, seven Nazarene leaders flew to Lospalos to sign papers and hold a small ground breaking ceremony.”

Who: East Timor Nazarenes

What: Purchased their first piece of land

When: Feb. 16

Where: Lospalos

As you can see, again the Why and How are left for remaining paragraphs. That’s a fairly normal structure for many straight news ledes.

Before we move on to another way to write a straight news lede, here’s a fun approach to lede-writing.