Deborah Howell wrote this column on anecdotal leads, and how to do them right: Readers' Plea - Get to the Point.
Confession: I love anecdotal leads. It's sort of my comfort zone. But Howell makes a point that in this information age, readers want the 5 Ws and 1 H right away. She's not saying don't do anecdotal leads, but we have to do them smart, by mixing all the necessary information in with our anecdote. She has a good point.
To echo a couple points made in Howell's piece, to me, for anecdotal leads to work, they must be:
ReplyDelete-short
-integral to the story
-like anything else, used when it's the best way to begin that particular story, not simply because an anecdote exists and provides the writer with a few grafs of snappy narrative.
Any other thoughts?