Writer's Block

Gag me with a lede

Have you ever been to a Speech and Debate competition? Have you ever sat there on the hard classroom chairs while some poor zit-faced kid mumbled her argument for why we need universal health care, or delivered a hyperventilating performance of "Da Three Little Pua'a"? Have you ever noticed how just about every one of those zit-faced kids start their speech with, "Have you ever noticed..."?

I was that zit-faced kid.

At least, that's how I started my Speech and Debate career. Eventually it was pointed out to me by Mrs. Miyamoto, the Speech and Debate mastermind of Iolani School, that starting your speech with a rhetorical question, ESPECIALLY the stale and soggy "have you ever," was just about the tritest, most unimaginative go-to opening line of every kid destined to become a Speech and Debate failure. By junior year, I still had zits, but I was the master of sparkling anecdotes and hard-hitting factual introductions. And that's how I became a Speech and Debate champion. (Actually, second place in my event for 1995 -- but I was robbed.)

Fast forward to today. I'm working on a story about the General Plan, and the only lede I can come up with is extremely lame. Without giving anything away, it's basically: "Should Maui do this, or that? That's the central question guiding the debate over...." Blah, blah, blah.

I know, I know. I've got to be able to come up with something better than that, right? I usually favor very direct, factual ledes. When I can't figure out how to start a story, I try to ask myself, "What is the point of the story?" Then I just write that. Sounds simple, but it usually works. A couple of years ago I was struggling with how to start a complex story about a looming sand shortage. There were so many angles! So many opinions! So much to say! But when I asked myself what the whole point of the story was, I had my lede: "Maui is running out of something most people take for granted: sand." That pretty much said it all.

My General Plan story probably won't run before the weekend, so I still have time to think up the perfect lede. But now I have bigger problems to worry about: am I getting a zit?