Lively lede devices for bloggers (and other authors)

Focus your thoughts before beginning. What tone is appropriate for the article: lively, dry and newsy, dreamy and erudite? What's the target audience? What are the key points? The gist of the article?

Now bait your hook. You need a scene – or language – arresting enough to capture readers attention. Some tried and true techniques:

• Action: studies reveal that reader like to see characters and even things in motion. Focus on active, evocative verbs, not passive constructions.
• Be challenging: shake up what folks think they know. Reveal something new, whether that's a better ad revenue model or tips for a silkier showdog coat...
• Dilemma: Introduce a problem that the characters – or reader or society – need to solve.
• Emotion: Stir up empathy or revulsion or anger, then unravel the narrative or intellectual arguments.
• In media res: Latin for "in the middle the things". Drop the reader into a scene, then spool out the backstory before proceeding on the journey.
• Quest: Humans are hardwired to learn from the experiences of others, as we discussed week two. Curious situations rivet us and excite the rubberneck impulse. A quest takes that a step further, tapping one of our great plot archetypes: hero overcomes obstacles, wins reward. (Aristotle boiled all tales down to seven categories: quest, voyage and return, rebirth, comedy, tragedy, overcoming the monster and rags to riches, as Peter Reeves points out here.)
• Running joke: make with the funny. And keep the humor weaving through the post, evolving.
• Senses: stretch beyond the obvious (sight) and engage readers on other levels. Be precise. Don't say "sweet smell," when you can specify the "musk of old orchids" or the "scent of sun-warmed cedar".
• Suspense: Intrigue can involve a reader in a story. Bewilderment, however, is a harder sell. Give the audience enough framework to follow, but enough mystery to continue following...
• Universal stories: Emphasize the elements readers are most likely to share.

Weak lede techniques to avoid

• Burying the lede: Chief among journalistic sins, this denotes putting the good stuff low in the story, rather than up front as bait. Given search-bot behavior, it's even more critical to write important details into the top of a post. Those concerned about SEO should work in keywords also.
• Clichés: They don't engage the reader with a familiar device. They bore them with it. So no dark and stormy nights, unless you follow up with some riveting and immediate twist.
• Hypotheticals: Long convoluted "if, then" clauses slow the pace of the text and reverse into the point. Also, they encourage readers to skip ahead, should the scenario not speak immediately to them. Be especially wary of anticipating how people might feel or react: that can insult and alienate an audience. Captivate readers with strong plots and prose: don't try to artificially inject them into the action.
  
• Second person: Like "if" clauses, the second-person pronoun "you" promises to involve the reader in the story. But many editors consider this such a cheap, blatant ploy that they ban it. Just sayin'...
• Stalling: The material at the start of a sentence – or especially a paragraph – has greater prominence. Don't fill that key space with dates, subclauses or padded out verbs of being, like "there are" and "it may be".
• Thinking out loud: Save your musing for later in the piece. Or rather, don't ask the readers to watch you ponder until you've already nabbed their attention with the topic in question.

Plenty of world-class writers break these guidelines routinely, sure. But until your writing's world-class and has a devoted audience, it's worth learning the tricks, then deciding which to discard in certain circumstances.