The lead—like the title—should be a flashlight that shines down into the story. A lead is a promise. It promises that the piece of writing is going to be like this. If it is not going to be so, don’t use the lead. Some leads are much longer than others. I am not talking just about first sentences. I am talking about an integral beginning that sets a scene and implies the dimensions of the story. That might be a few words, a few hundred words. And it might be two thousand words, setting the scene for a story fifty times as long. A lead is good not because it dances, fires cannons, or whistles
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