Writing Effective

Story Leads

Writing Effective

Story Leads

A potato grows beneath the surface in a

piece of writing. It’s the thing that the

reader and the writer want to dig up.

A lead is like that potato. Leads are the seeds

that help a writer begin to figure out where

the plant is growing. They are an

organizational tool, a motivational tool, and

a springboard into a piece of writing. They

also lead us to endings.

Dig a Potato Today!

Listen to the following leads. What

questions arise in your mind as you listen?

Dig a Potato Today!

I was six years old when my mother

taught me the art of invisible strength.

Rules of the Game by Amy Tan

Dig a Potato Today!

You are not the kind of guy who

would be at a place like this at this time of

the morning.

Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney

Dig a Potato Today!

The name my family calls me is

Morning Girl because I wake up early

always with something on my mind.

The Morning Girl by Michael Dorris

Leads are magic

flashlights that shine

down through a story

showing the writer

what to put in and

what to leave out.

John McPhee

We are going to

review four types of

leads:

- descriptive

- dialogue

- thinking

- action

Types of Leads:

Descriptive Leads

Create a picture in the reader’s mind.

Abraham Lincoln wasn’t the sort of

man who could lose himself in a crowd.

After all, he stood 6 foot 4 inches tall, and to

top it off, he wore a high silk hat. His height

was mostly in his long bony legs, and when

he sat in a chair he seemed no taller than

anyone else. It was only when he stood up

that he towered above other men.

Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman

Types of Leads:

Descriptive Leads

Create a picture in the reader’s mind.

Mossflower lay deep in the grip of

midwinder beneath a sky of leaden gray that

showed tinges of scarlet and orange on the

horizon. A cold mantle of snow draped the

landscape, covering the flatlands to the west

. . . .Winter had muted the earth; the muffled

stillness was broken only by a traveler’s

paws.

Mossflower by Brian Jacques

Types of Leads:

Dialogue LeadsLet your characters start talking.

“George, I wish you’d look at the

nursery.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, then.”

“I just want you to look at it, is all, or

call a psychologist in to look at it.”

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

Types of Leads:

Dialogue Leads

Let your characters start talking.

“Where is Papa going with that ax?”

said Fern to her mother as they were setting

the table for breakfast.

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Types of Leads:

Thinking Leads

Start with a thought inside a character .

Mother taught me to be polite to dragons.

Particularly polite, I mean; she taught me to be

ordinarily polite to everyone. Well, it makes

sense. With all the enchanted princesses and

disguised wizards and transformed kings and

so on wandering around, you never know

whom you might be talking to. But dragons are

a special case.

Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

Types of Leads:

Thinking Leads

Start with a thought inside a character .

As a boy, I never knew where my

mother was from—where she was born, who

her parents were.

The Color of Water by James McBride

Types of Leads:

Action Leads

Set-up the action/conflict for the

whole story in a few sentences.

The first concussion cut the rocket up

the side with a giant can opener. The men

were thrown into space like a dozen

wriggling silverfish. There were scattered

into a dark sea; and the ship, in a million

pieces, went on, a meteor swarm seeking a

lost sun.

“Kaleidoscope” by Ray Bradbury

Types of Leads:

Action Leads

Set-up the action/conflict for the

whole story in a few sentences.

A cold day after school. Frankie T.,

who would drown his brother by accident

that coming spring and would use a length

of pipe to beat a woman in a burglary years

later, had me pinned to the ground behind a

backstop, his breath sour as meat left out in

the sun.

“Fear” by Gary Soto

A great lead will get the reader thinking,

wondering, and curious about what’s going

to happen next.

Great Leads

Dig Up Great Questions

Good readers ask questions all the time while

they’re reading although they may not even

realize it. Wanting to answer the questions is

what keeps us reading.

Questions come in different shapes. One

type of question is the above the surface

question – What happened? What are the

facts? What’s the truth?

Who was with you at the store?

What kind of day was it?

When did it happen?

Did you need stitches?

Types of Questions:Above the Surface / Below the Surface

The second kind of question digs below the

surface of a story and tries to root out a

new thought, insight, or feeling.

Types of Questions:Above the Surface / Below the Surface

How did you feel when you fell

off your bike?

Do you remember another time

you felt that way?

Why did she steal the candy?

Both kinds of questions can help a writer

develop a story, but the second kind of

question is especially important because it

can help a writer to find new ideas and

angles.

Types of Questions:Above the Surface / Below the Surface

What was he thinking when the

hurricane blew through?

How did it feel to see the house

destroyed?

One way to practice digging questions is to do

what journalists do. Use the following words

to ask questions about the following pictures

and leads. Pay attention to the two kinds of

questions you are asking. Try to ask both

above the surface and below the surface

questions.

Notebook Entry - Asking QuestionsAbove the Surface / Below the Surface

Who? What?

When? Where?

Why? How?

What kinds of questions could

we ask about this picture?

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

1. Write two

questions on

your paper.

What kinds of questions could

we ask about this picture?

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

2. Write two

questions on

your paper.

Many years later, as he faced the firing

squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to

remember that distant afternoon when his

father took him to discover ice.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

What kinds of questions

could we ask about this

lead?

Who? What?

When? Where?

Why? How?

3. Write two

questions on

your paper.

Every so often that dead dog dreams me

up again.

Dog Heaven by Stephanie Vaughn

What kinds of questions

could we ask about this

lead?

Who? What?

When? Where?

Why? How?

4. Write two

questions on

your paper.

If you really want to hear about it, the

first thing you’ll probably want to know is

where I was born, and what my lousy

childhood was like, and how my parents were

occupied and all before they had me, and all

that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t

like going into it, if you want to know the

truth.

Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

What kinds of

questions could we

ask about this lead?

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

5. Write two

questions on

your paper.