Great Escape Publishing

Posted January 6th, 2019 by Great Escape Publishing & filed under Podcast, Travel Writing.

“The most important sentence in any article is the first one.” –William Zinsser

Host, Jody Maberry brings us another segment from the Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop in Austin, Texas.

This week we’ll hear from Tracey Minkin again. Tracey is the Travel Editor for Coastal Living magazine. You can listen to last week’s episode with Tracey here.

In this episode Tracey discusses the different types of ledes for articles. Understanding this will add a punch to your writing that editors and readers will notice.

Tracey came to her post as the travel editor at Coastal Living through working very hard at her craft. She compares it to building a table.

First you look at what you have in your toolbox…

Then you figure out how to put all the pieces together…

And then, you figure out how to make it beautiful.

As writers, one of the most important things we have in our toolbox is the lede—the opening few lines of an article.

There are six types of ledes…

News
Anecdotal
Scene setting
First person
Observational
Zinger

Listen in as Tracey deconstructs the types of ledes and gives tips on how to use each one.

If you’re interested in joining us at a live workshop like the one held last year in Austin, visit their events page at: new.greatescapepublishing.com/events.