The word ‘Lead’ can confuse an ordinary reader, but not a journalist in industry. For instance, the perception of a marketer can differ from an attorney here. The word ‘Lede’ is the nostalgic spelling of ‘Lead’ because it emerged during bygone days when typesetters were struggling to differentiate it from the lead of the hot type.
What Is Lede?
Do you need to attract the attention to the news, stories, or content readers & pull them ahead to consume the entire content? It is an opening hook that becomes the need of the day, and Lede serves the purpose beautifully.
You might have assumed that I am going to teach you some basics of journalism, but it is not here. The modern web has changed the entire scenario of content writing and blurred the lines among the content categories a lot. Hence, the types of Lede your content needs.
Thereby, I am going to introduce the different types of Lede in classical as well as modern perspectives. Let’s see old perception first.
News Lede
It is also famous as 5 W’s Lede because it used to become a long sentence containing answers of 5 W’s (Who, What, Where, When, Why, and sometimes How) in a convoluted manner. Smart writers always break it in shorter sentences to enhance readability for the sake of better reading experiences and win the favor of search engines in the ranking.
Second-day Lede
Many news topics or stories in the news and elsewhere published in a regular fashion. Many news is running for days, and each day or hour, it gets updated. In such a scenario, Lede needs to eliminate repeating parts once the main news or first-day news gets published, and the audience is a bit familiar with the startup stories. Thereby, it is termed as the second-day lead.
Hook Lede
Many stories need to create mystery and want to make readers thirsty for more. In due course, the writer intentionally eliminates some vital information and creates suspense around it. Thus, readers, whether they go through the entire content or wait for the next part of stories to reveal hidden aspects.
Feature Lede
It is for featured stories that are free from the hard news. It means the leads are also ‘Free’ from any rule described before. Therefore, we find strange, bizarre, and quirky things included in the story, which the reporter had discovered. The feature leads are used to build details, gradually turning all in natural ways.
Explanatory Lede
You might have noticed that leads or introduction of printed and digital books are lengthy and follow almost no rule like news Lede at all. It just lets readers enjoy the ride in the wild.
Anecdotal Lede
Sometimes when a writer goes to explain an intricate topic, the anecdote is the way to go. It is the best way to open a feature story, but only for shorter pieces.
Setup Lede
It is highly used by bloggers, SEO-writers, and technical writers today. It is used to introduce the topic and set up what flows the next in the content like blogs, articles, infographics, and Q&A like the content.
Finally,
If you are interested to know more kinds of leads/Lede and what precautions as well as enhancements are essential writing Lede for different kinds of content, please wait for some, Sana will present things in cloying ways.