Bicyclists -- Quotes

Quotes are a great way to highlight a point, illustrate a fact and personalize a calculated telling.

For those of you who hooked the story on the angle that Taylor can't wait to write again, you had a golden quote to use:

"I still want to ride. If I could, I'd be out there right now, but it's hard to ride a bike when you have to use crutches," Taylor said.

Great quote, right? Looking at the get-back-on-that-horse lede, it would be a perfect quote to support and confirm the lede for readers, right? Sums up your main point nicely, does it not?

Then why do I find it in the 13th graf of that story?

That's not the worst of it. Another one of you who had a similar lede saved that quote for the last graf of their story.

I think it would have been better positioned as the first quote you use in the story, ideally after the lede and nut graf and before you moved into the body of the story with a chronological telling.

It's not enough to find quotes that support central points of your story. It's not even enough to use quotes that support central points of your story. You should make sure the best quotes that best support your central points are ranked within your story in a spot that recognizes the prominence.

In the same way that it's not enough to have a story that's relevant, interesting and useful and that you need to have a lede where the relevance, interest and utility shine through; it's not enough to have a story with good quotes and you need to have a story where good quotes shine through.