One of youze did a nice alternate lede, but the nut graf fell a bit short. Here was the sequence:
One left in a jiffy. And the other? Not so much.
Jiffy Foods, located in Okemos, was the target of an attempted robbery by two men early this morning.
Then, you start with the chronological narrative of how things unfolded.
First off, the lede was cute and a great teasing set-up for the nut graf.
Now, the nut graf does half of what a good nut graf does, in expanding upon the lede. It says where they left, and what they were doing there.
But the nut graf falls short in another area, and that's answering critical questions created by the lede. Like, why did the one guy stay? And why did the other guy leave in a jiffy? Those question was central to your lede, and you leave the reader still guessing after the nut graf.
I mean, after reading the lede and nut graf, the reader is left guessing what we meant with the whole jiffy/not so much thing. And we can't leave them hanging like that.
A better nut graf would say something like this:
Two men walked into Jiffy Foods in Okemos as part of an alleged armed robbery attempt, but only one of the suspects was able to flee after the other was beaten by a clerk wielding a cane.
Now, we can go on to the narrative, because the reader knows what the lede meant.
Be sure that you carefully look at your lede, and think about what people need to immediately know for that lede to make sense if they don't read anything other than the lede and nut graf. What they need to know goes in your nut graf.
One left in a jiffy. And the other? Not so much.
Jiffy Foods, located in Okemos, was the target of an attempted robbery by two men early this morning.
Then, you start with the chronological narrative of how things unfolded.
First off, the lede was cute and a great teasing set-up for the nut graf.
Now, the nut graf does half of what a good nut graf does, in expanding upon the lede. It says where they left, and what they were doing there.
But the nut graf falls short in another area, and that's answering critical questions created by the lede. Like, why did the one guy stay? And why did the other guy leave in a jiffy? Those question was central to your lede, and you leave the reader still guessing after the nut graf.
I mean, after reading the lede and nut graf, the reader is left guessing what we meant with the whole jiffy/not so much thing. And we can't leave them hanging like that.
A better nut graf would say something like this:
Two men walked into Jiffy Foods in Okemos as part of an alleged armed robbery attempt, but only one of the suspects was able to flee after the other was beaten by a clerk wielding a cane.
Now, we can go on to the narrative, because the reader knows what the lede meant.
Be sure that you carefully look at your lede, and think about what people need to immediately know for that lede to make sense if they don't read anything other than the lede and nut graf. What they need to know goes in your nut graf.
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