Lede's and Story Structure

Story Structure

• Inverted Pyramid
• Hard News Story
• Most important stuff at the top
• Less important as you go down
• Lede is the top
• Paragraph is one sentence long
• 5 W's 1 H
• Who, What, When, Where, Why, How
• Lede needs to try to get all in
• "How" and "Why" are hard to get in
• Structure
• Lede 1st para.
• Nut graf (where you put anything you couldn't get in the first one) 2nd para.
• "Direct Quote" 3rd para.
• Statement (factual) 4th para.
• "Direct Quote" 5th para.
• Statement 6th, Quotes 7th, Statement 8th, etc….
• Example Lede "Car Accident"
• Who: Roger Clementine, John Jacob Jingleheimer-Smith (JJJS) and Melba
• What: A wreck occurred
• Where: 1st Street and Slaughter Lane
• When: Tuesday afternoon 4:45
• Why: The car was being driven by an unlicensed driver
• How: A car was on the wrong side of the road and had a head on collision
• Story Structure Practice: Car Accident Story
• Lede
• On Tuesday, at 4:45 PM, Roger Clementine had a head on collision with John Jacob Jingleheimer-Smith and his wife Melba at 1st and Slaughter lane.
• Nut Graf
• Clementine was an underage driver as well as unlicensed, speeding, and driving on the wrong side of the road. The police cited him for all of the above.
• Quote
• Mine: "The boy should not have been driving at all, let alone out on such a busy street." says police officer Billy Joel.
• Journalism Style:
• Starts with quotation mark: "
• Regular sentence: "The accident was horrible, it made a sound I had never heard before when they crunched together
• Comma a the end: "The accident was horrible, it made a sound I had never heard before when they crunched together,
• End quotation: "The accident was horrible, it made a sound I had never heard before when they crunched together,"
• Title name said: "The accident was horrible, it made a sound I had never heard before when they crunched together," eye witness Samantha Jones said
• Period: "The accident was horrible, it made a sound I had never heard before when they crunched together," eye witness Samantha Jones said.
• Mine Edited: "The boy should not have been driving at all, let alone out on such a busy street," police officer Billy Joel said.
• Statement
• At the time of the collision Clementine was driving a 1948 Studebaker at 60 mph and JJJS was driving a 1989 Yugo Firebelcher at 10 mph.
• Quote
• "Driving isn't all that hard, it was that ol' shmuck who was going way to slow, that's why he hit me," underage driver Roger Clementine said.
• Statement
• John and Melba JJJS were admitted to the hospital and Melba has been released since. John with a serious head injury and Melba with a bloody nose
• Quote
• "Mr. Smith is in bad shape, he received a serious concussion which at his age is incredibly bad. I don't see him making it through the night," brain surgeon Yu Wong Lee said.
• Statement
• The weather that day was clear and sunny and the road was not slick.
• Quote
• "This is what the government is doing wrong, they can't keep the cheerun in school, so they run amuck casein ruckus," passenger Melba JJJS said.