I was always told in journalism classes that getting the lede right was the single most important thing to accomplish when writing a news story. I have now learned that was false; it's the single most important thing to accomplish in any piece of writing.
For the non-journalism folks in the crowd, the "lede" of a story is, put simply, the first sentence. Or the first group of sentences. It's the opening statement, description, or turn-of-phrase that both immediately points at what the story is about and gives the reader a reason to keep reading. Journalists spend their entire careers trying to crack the code of what makes the perfect lede and yet somehow the formula is elusive to everyone. No matter how many articles you write, coming up with the right lede always manages to be a unique challenge for every story.
But its importance cannot be overstated. In one journalism class I took, my professor said that when he used to write stories he would spend up to 50% of his time just working on the lede, which I was absolutely floored by. 50% of your time on 1-2 sentences? I couldn't tell if he was a master of his craft or if he just had a crush on the paper's receptionist and couldn't focus while writing for the life of him. His reasoning was totally fair though: once you write the lede and know it's good, then the rest of the story always seems to fall into place. You have the foundation built and know the angle from which you're telling the story, and so then all you have to do is let the story unravel itself and fill in the details as you go knowing the lede set you in the right direction.
I was pretty skeptical at first. I'm a pretty slow and methodical writer, but spending an hour or two on a single sentence sounded like journalistic hell for me. And in all fairness, I still could never see myself spending 50% of my time on any piece of writing just perfecting the first sentence. It's a ludicrous way to work.
But I've now realized my professor's high-level thesis was spot-on. In my experience, whether I'm writing a news story or a business email or an album review, spending time to make sure I write a good lede pays for itself by making sure I know the exact essence of what I'm trying to say and the way in which I'm going to get there. It almost feels like the difference between speed and velocity to me. Whenever I write a piece by starting somewhere in the middle and working my way back into a lede, it always ends up feeling unfocused. I might be able to write with pretty good speed, but I don't really know what direction I'm going in. Starting with a lede gives you a direction to channel that speed into. Writing with a strong lede is writing with velocity.
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