How to Write a Descriptive Lead

A descriptive lead can be such a fine-tuned piece of word art that you do not need a picture. "One good word can be worth a thousand pictures," a TV journalist once said. So, find the essence of your story and describe the smells, the beauty, the ugliness, to such a heightened degree that the reader will have to snap themselves back to reality.

Instructions

1. Research your feature story in great detail. Good feature writing and good leads require in-depth research and 360-degree understanding of your story. No short cuts here.

2. Select a scene that symbolizes the essence of your story. Choose an opening scene that will give the reader a sense of being transported to a time and place in your story that is significant and meaningful, reflective or dramatic.

3. Create the description of all descriptions. Know and understand thoroughly the details about which you are writing. Fill your description with as many details as you can stuff into it. With a descriptive lead the art is in how the details are laid out artfully, like a movie picture, like a radio show or a piece of good descriptive storytelling.

4. Eliminate excess until your word picture is worth a thousand pictures.

5. Revise, revise and revise feature leads. Make the descriptive lead succinct and clear as a clarion call. Let your reader experience being there.

6. Anchor the story in this descriptive scene. Choose well, write well and anchor your reader right there before you even begin the story.