Don't waste the main verb of the sentence on a minor action while expressing the principal action in a subordinate clause. This is a violation of emphasis. For example, "Fatally burned by an explosion in his laundry, Hing Lee was taken to the hospital." Naturally he would be taken to the hospital, but why put the emphasis of the whole sentence on that point?
Don't resort to the expression "was the unusual experience of——" "was the fate of——" or any like them. Every word in the lead must count, and here are five words that say nothing at all. Use their place to tell what the unusual experience was. For instance, don't say "To stand in a driving snowstorm and watch their homes burn to the ground was the unusual experience of two families, living at, etc."; say instead, "Standing in a driving snowstorm two families watched their homes burn to the ground." The latter says the same thing more effectively in less space. The use of this expression—"was the unusual experience of"—is always the mark of a green reporter.
Don't overwork the expression "Fire broke out." All fires "break out," but usually we are more interested in the result of the fire than in its "breaking out." Try to use some expression that will give more definite information.
Don't be wordy. Editors are always calling for shorter and more concise leads. If you can say a thing in two words don't use half a dozen. For example, "Four members of the local fire department were rendered unconscious by the deadly fumes from bursting ammonia pipes." This takes three times as much space as "Four firemen were overcome by ammonia fumes," and it does not express the idea any more effectively.
Don't introduce minor details into the lead. If the reader wants the details he may read the rest of the story. Take the following lead as an example:
Rushing back into his burning laundry, a one-story brick building, to rescue from the flames his savings, amounting to $437, with which he hoped to raise himself from the rank of laborer to that of a prosperous merchant, and which was hidden under the mattress of his bed in the back room of the laundry, Hing Lee, a Chinaman, who lives at 79 Nicollett avenue and has been in this country but three months, was overcome by smoke and so seriously burned that he had to be removed to the St. Mary Hospital and may not live, when his establishment was destroyed by a fire which, starting from the explosion of the tank of the gasolene stove on which he was cooking his dinner, gutted his laundry, entailing a loss of $1,000, shortly before noon to-day.
It is entirely grammatical, but if the reader succeeds in wading through it there is nothing left to tell about the fire. Why not begin the story in this way and leave something for the rest of the story?
Because he rushed back into his burning laundry to rescue his savings, Hing Lee, a Chinese laundryman, 79 Nicollett avenue, was seriously burned to-day.
Don't waste the first line of the lead on meaningless generalities. Get down to the facts at once. For instance, "The presence of mind and bravery of Fireman David Mullen saved Mrs. Daniel Looker from being burned to death in her flat, etc." We are willing to grant his bravery and presence of mind, but we want to know at once what he did: "By sliding down an eighty-foot extension ladder through flames and smoke with an unconscious woman in his arms, Fireman David Mullen rescued Mrs. Daniel, etc." Equally useless is the beginning, "A daring rescue of an unconscious woman from the fourth story of a blazing flat building was made by Fireman David Mullen to-day, etc." Tell what the daring rescue was and let the reader manufacture a fitting eulogy.
Don't exaggerate the facts to make a feature. When a few persons are frightened don't turn it into a dreadful panic. Every little fire is not a holocaust and the burning of a small barn does not endanger the entire city, unless your imagination is strong enough to guess what might have happened had there been a high wind and no fire engines. A narrow escape from death does not always excuse the beginning, "Scores killed and injured would have been the result, if——" All beginnings of this kind give a false impression and do not tell the truth. If a story has no striking feature be satisfied to tell the truth about it without trying to make a world-wide disaster out of it for the sake of a place on the front page. Exaggeration for a feature is one of the bad elements of sensational journalism. For example, seven lives were lost in this fire, but this is the way the story was written, for the sake of a three-column scare-head: