Somethin' about a catchy hook, look!

AP Guide to News Writing (Chapters 3-5)

"The more action your lead conveys, the better. Strong verbs are important."

Leads are the hook of the story. What this chapter was getting at was to make it spunky, and as catchy as possible. Readers don't want to read the same thing over and over every time they open up a newspaper. There cannot be clumsy structure, or boing words. Verbs like, "went and stayed" and the sort need to be spiced up. For instance, I was reading a news story about an upcoming video game called Mass Effect, and the controversy that it may bring. The lead was short, sweet, and layed out what I will see if I continued reading the article. It used words that added color to the story, and held my attention.