In an article written sometime ago entitled “With Lousy Ledes, Nobody Reads” Denny Hatch, one of my favourite copywriting experts reminded us of the best way to get a story read was to employ the classic arrangement—an Inverted Pyramid. He went onto say:
“Traditional news stories and press releases are created in the “inverted pyramid” format. The short lede paragraph (the introductory portion of a news story, especially the first sentence) describes who, what, where, when and how. This enables the reader to grasp the basics and decide whether or not to continue.”
Subsequent paragraphs fill in details, from the most important down to the least important.
When an inverted pyramid story goes out over the wires or Internet, editors can pick up as much or as little as they want, depending on the space available. Even if all but the first two paragraphs are lopped off, readers still get the guts of the story.
When the pyramid is received, all the editor or reader needs to do is eyeball the first paragraph to know what’s there and whether it may be of value.
The above technique is a viable concept for memos, press releases, whitepapers, new stories, blogs reports, PowerPoint presentations—virtually all nonfiction writing.”
Acknowledgement: This was extracted from an article published in Today @ Target Marketing. Click here to subscribe.
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