Another paper tried to arrange it more happily, thus:
| Bitten by a rattlesnake, Myrtle Olson's| |mother slashed her daughter's leg with a | |table knife, washed the wound with | |kerosene, then covered the incision with | |salt. Myrtle still lives. |
There is evidently something wrong in this. It would be a good exercise to try to express the idea grammatically.
Before we go on to the consideration of the body of this story a few _Don'ts_ in regard to writing leads may be in order.
Don't begin a lead with a person's name unless the person is well known. We are always interested in anything unusual that a man may do or anything unusual that he may suffer, but unless we know the man we are not at all interested in his name. Suppose that a man performs some thrilling act or suffers some unusual misfortune in a city of 100,000 people. Probably not more than one hundred people know him, and of that number only one or two will read the story. Then why begin with his name when his action is of greater interest to all but a few of our readers? And yet every reader wants to know whether the victim is one of his friends. Therefore the man's name must be mentioned in the lead, although it should not come at the beginning. On the other hand, if the man is prominent in the nation or the community and well known to all our readers, his name adds interest to the story and we begin with the name. There is a growing tendency among American newspapers to begin all of their stories with a name. The tendency appears to be the result of an attempt to break away from the conventional lead and to begin in a more natural way--also an easier way. But the name beginning is after all illogical, and any reporter is safe in following the logical course in the matter. If the name is not important begin with something that is important.
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.