Leads From the Crypt
That’s a grabby title. Crypts are creepy, and no one wants to think about leading ANYthing out of a crypt, so the title preys on our fascination with terrifying ideas.
Grabby titles and grabby leads—the topic of today’s post. I guess I’m thinking about it because I’ve been guiding two of my writers in crafting their query letter for agents. And while there are no hard and fast rules for how to begin a query, my journalist’s gut knows that a sticky lead will do more for you than a one-liner bio. Agents read dozens of queries at a time, so it’s best to throw down a string of words that piques their interest right off the top.
I wasn’t even planning to write this post, but when I stumbled across a snappy lead this morning from one of my old articles, I realized two things:
The lead is so good that I can’t just let it die a quiet death inside my Dropbox.
I should probably share more of my own writing with you. You know, get naked in the same way I ask you to get naked when you hire me as your coach. It’s only fair.
I’ve got a lot of leads sitting around, so maybe I’ll make this into a blog series. For today, here’s one from an article about restorative getaways, from the way-back machine (2011):
The RIM server crashes and you’re left without email for three days. iOS 5 loads and it obliterates all your apps, including your banking. Your webinar loses audio five minutes in, and no one’s picking up the phone at tech support. You can’t figure out how to stop your iPod from telling what song you’re listening to – three times per track. Your toddler springs a nasty case of the runs the day before your faculty association meeting, your partner’s out of town and the daycare has a strict no-shitty-kids policy.
Welcome. You’re now fully immersed in the time-starved, stimulation-saturated twenty-first century.
But whether you’re feeling stressed, off-balance, sick or downright head-splitting-apart crazy, there is a place in the world where you can hang up what’s haunting you and get a grip on your spirit. In fact, there are several. In this issue of YAM, we introduce you to a handful of North America’s hottest breakaways from the everyday.
Wow, eh? We haven’t talked about RIM in a long time. And iOS 5 sounds like a kindergartner in pigtails, now that Apple has just rolled out iOS17 this month. But the antiquities aren’t the point.
The point is, it’s a pretty good lead. Let’s pick it apart:
I wouldn’t be so wordy nowadays. I’d drop two of those five sentences in the first paragraph, and just go for three examples.
The no-shitty-kids policy made me laugh, so that’s a keeper. It’s unexpected, and that’s often where you’ll find your strongest phrases. Look at the world of advertising. The most memorable ads deliver their message in an unexpected way:
From the Altoid Ads Hall of Fame on a really old website (remember Angelfire? yeah)
The second paragraph of this lead is great. It just stands there and punches. I would remove “fully”, though. Adverbs rarely add value; in fact, they often weaken the surrounding phrase.
Third paragraph, I would remove “stressed” from the first line. The other three descriptors have a better cadence without it. Always read for cadence.
Third paragraph again. I love “hang up what’s haunting you” and “get a grip on your spirit”. They have great alliteration. Keep.
It’s not a query lead. In fact, it’s much too long for a query. I would need to winch it down to one sentence or maybe two, max. But it’s got the key pieces: grabby descriptive phrases, a hint about what’s to come, and it conjures the emotional state I want readers to feel—in this case, frazzled and over-stimulated.
When you’re pitching to an agent, an editor or, as in this case, the reader themselves, it’s worth the extra time and effort to get the language snapping.