Hooking and Keeping Readers

A chapter summary

Intro

• the online age has made it difficult to get noticed among many
• online readers are fickle and have short attention spans

So what?

• the main question to ask when writing a lead
• web readers are quick to abandon any page they find boring
• the lead (first paragraph) amd the nut graph (the second paragraph) must be informative and INTERESTING
• to increase interest, include strange or unusual facts; what would interest the target audience?
• summary leads: who, what, when, where (often in that order) good place to start
• inverted pyramid: presenting facts in order of most to least important
• this is not a rule; there are instances where it is not very effective
• feature lead: unusual or interesting nature of event, then facts
• newsworthy: traditionally, timelines, proximity, prominence or impact made a story newsworthy; today, wierdness qualifies too
• there are entire websites devoted to offbeat stories

Headlines and Link Text

• battle for reader's attention on the internet
• magazines, newspapers must be paged through; hardly anyone flips through every news story on the site
• be aware of space limitations for link text
• techniques for emphasis: coloured headlines, pictures, video links, first paragraph in bold (ex. MSNBC)
• you won't have the final say in headline, that's the editor's job

A Square Lead in a Round Web

• a good lead is one that works online, takes format, aim and audience into consideration
• aquaint yourself with your publication's standards and formats
• write tightly: lots of information in little space
• online audience is reading the news to find out what's going on, not for literature
• goal is to grab readers and inform them long enough to make them want to keep reading

Getting Your Facts Organized

• after a good lead, good writing with flow must follow
• understand the aspects of the information you want to share
• convey in an engaging and logical manner
• inverted pyramid is a good starting point
• quotes can put faces on events: hows and whys
• less important information is traditionally put at end incase it must be cut to fit a news hole; not a problem online
• hard-news stories have facts first
• soft-news stories can begin with descriptions or anecdotes
• features generally use more quotes than hard-news
• placing contrasting emotions in the beginning is a good way to hook readers
• hard-news stories don't require strong endings, but features need wrap-up