Many of you went straight from the lede to a chronology of how things went down without setting up a nut graf, and thereby leaving major questions created by your lede unanswered until much later in the story, like here:
A trip to Nichols Lake in Lakeside Park in East Lansing yesterday resulted in two deaths.
Randy Stockdale, 9,and Edward McGorwan, 10, were playing in a steep area of Nichols Lake whn McGorwan lost his footing and ...
... then you went into the blow-by-blow.
Here's the problem: in your lede you said two people died. Who were the two people? Was it Stockdale and McGorwan? You don't make that at all clear.
In the third graf you introduce McDowell, but you don't say he died until the eighth graf. That's two grafs after you note McGorwan was one of the dead people. You make the reader work almost entirely through 10-paragraph story before they know exactly what you're writing about.
And readers should never have to precede past the lede and nut graf and not know what happened. Your story would have been immensely helped by a nut graf like this:
Edward McGorwan, 10, died this morning after falling into the lake around midday yesterday. William McDowell, 30, drowned after jumping into the lake to try to rescue the boy.
Now you can move into the play-by-play after detailing the whos and the whats suggested by the lede.
Here's an example of a good lede/nut graf/supporting quote combo:
The East Lansing Regional Medical Center announced today the boy who was pulled out of Nichols Lake after he waded too far from shore yesterday had died.
Dr. Catarina Lowrie said Edward McGorwan, 10, died this morning from an accidental drowning after he spent the night on a respirator.
“His condition did not improve. At his mother’s request, we took Edward off the respirator. He died less than half an hour later,” Lowrie said.
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