Cover the Planet

By David Poulson

You’ve got to get customers through the door before you can sell them any merchandise.

That’s even true with online sales - it’s just that the door is virtual rather than real. That’s why I hit on ledes in the previous post and likely will return to them. You want me to read one of those messy complicated environmental stories? You better be a good salesperson right off the bat.

But let’s take a look at the other end of the story. Too often we let our stories simply peter out. That’s a consequence of inverted pyramid writing - a style with which I have no particular quarrel. It’s a style that often serves the fast reads required in the Web world.

And yet, what a great place to reward the reader who has stuck with you. A stinger of an ending reverberates backwards through the story, driving home key points. It is a significant place for emphasis.

Check this ending out: “The plural of anecdote is not data.”

It’s on the end of a story appearing Wednesday in Slate that picks apart a Washington Post story on ecomigration. It’s a great piece of environmental journalism criticism. I recommend it both for the content and for the story structure.

Once you get the context for that ending, you can appreciate how sweet it is.

If the lede is where you get the customers in the door, the end is where you close the deal. The transaction has been successful because they’ve stuck with you.

But when you strive for this effect, don’t forget that part about getting them into the front door.

By the way, Jack Shafer, who wrote this piece, did a nice job on that end of things as well: “When hunting bogus trend stories, the experienced tracker rarely needs to look beyond Page One to bag his prey.”

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Climate, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.