Bicyclist: Quotes

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

Some of you who hooked the story on the angle that Taylor can't wait to write again, like in this lede/nut graf combo:

Marsha Taylor's body may be broken but her love for cycling, with the proper precautions, persists after suffering major injuries from a bike accident she was involved in four months ago.

She was released from Izzo Memorial Hospital two days ago after finishing ongoing treatments for her many external and internal injuries and recollected on her accident.

Plus, 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?

Problem is, in this case you never used that quote!


And why not? We should always be on the lookout for quotes that support and highlight the central points of our stories, and then we should use those quotes prominently.

Others had very telling quotes that very much went to the heart of your ledes, yet you held off on using the quotes until toward the end of your stories. Like this story, that led with ...

Marsha Taylor called cycling a hobby that she couldn't imagine her life without, even after she was hit by a car while riding and was left with multiple injuries.

Then, in the eighth graf, there was this:

"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.

In those cases, I think such quotes would have been better positioned as the first quotes you use in the stories, ideally after the lede and nut graf and before you moved into the body of the story with a chronological telling.

In this case, I think it could be the nut graf, since it does what a nut graf is supposed to do: elaborate, expand and support the lede.

I'm wondering in such cases, if you held on to a great quote to use for a satisfying ending. For those of you who featurized this story, a satisfying ending was an option, but you should avoid holding off on a killer quote just for a satisfying ending. Use your best quotes prominently.

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.