Robbery -- The Mystery of the Missing Nut Grafs

Nut grafs are important. Nut grafs do two important things: they fill in some of the blanks and details from your lede, and they offer a smooth transition to the body of a story.

In this exercise, many of you had inadequate nut grafs -- or none at all.

What many of you did was write a lede, and then directly go into the chronology of what happened, like here:

When Michal Layoux was robbed last night at the Haslett O-Mart, he was prepared to defend himself. Unfortunately for Robert Wiess, the armed robber, Layoux succeeded in doing just that.

According to Layoux, he was alone in the store when Wiess came in and pulled out a pistol after asking for a pack of cigarettes . . .

Hold on a sec. In the lede, you say Layoux succeeded in defending himself. Then you dive right into the play-by-play. Essentially, you're holding the reader hostage by not making it clear what conclusion they're reading toward. They need to read the entire story to find out what happened.

The body of a story offers details and evidence that supports your lede. Your nut graf offers just enough of the 5 w's -- who, what, when, where, why, plus how -- so that if a redader goes no further than the nut graf and never reads the chronology, they still know what happened and how it ended.

A nut graf would have been a perfect place to say something like this:

Using a contraband pistol, Layoux shot and killed Wiess as the latter man fled the store, located at 1284 E. Forest Blvd., after robbing the register of an estimated $20 in cash around 11 p.m. Wiess' body was found nearby.

Here was a better use of a lede-nut graf sequence by one of youze:

An O-Mart clerk took measures into his own hands during a holdup at the convenience store late yesterday evening.

Michael Layoux, 22, currently a student at Lansing Community College, shot a man three times after he felt threatened by him while he was robbing the store.

Then the story continues with the chronology of how things unfolded, in time order. You get a bit more information in the nut graf to help establish the lede -- and to let people know how things ended up -- before getting a blow-by-blow of how things went down.

One other thing I'd like to note here is that the wording of the nut graf was a bit confusing. When you say "he," do you mean the clerk or the robber? And which he is which? I think you'd have been better off saying he . . . shot a man three times after Layoux felt threatened by the gunman while the latter man was robbing the store.

Make sure you're laying things out clearly for your readers, and that you're not inadvertently confusing them.



After placing that next to the lede, then you can dive into the chronology. Basically, your lede/nut graf combo should read like a mini-story. (And if you ever write for broadcast, that's what they typical 30-second TV news story is: a lede and a nut graf, and maybe one sentence of additional information.)