ing made clear.

The ordinary rules of English composition apply to the writing of the
body of the story. The copy must be paragraphed, cut up into paragraphs
that are rather shorter than ordinary literary paragraphs, since the
narrowness of the newspaper column makes the paragraph seem longer.
Heterogeneous details must not be piled together in the same paragraph,
but the facts must be grouped and handled logically. No paragraph should
be noticeably longer than the others, and it is decidedly bad to
paragraph one sentence alone simply because it does not seem to go in
with any other sentence. If the fact is important expand it into a
paragraph by the introduction of further details; if it is unimportant
either cut it out of the story altogether or attach it to the paragraph
to which it seems most logically to belong.

One fact, already stated, must be borne in mind as the body of the story
progresses. The report should be built up in such a way that the editor
can slash off a paragraph or two at the end without injuring the
story--without sacrificing any important facts. To do this the reporter
should bring the important parts of the story as near the beginning as
the logical order will permit. The interest of a perfect news story is
like an inverted cone. The interest is abundant at the beginning and
gradually dwindles out until there is nothing more to say when the end
is reached. Just how far the dwindling should be carried depends upon
the amount of space that the story seems to be worth in the paper.

This may seem difficult. It may be hard to see how a story can be told
in its logical order while at the same time the most interesting facts
are placed at the beginning, even if they logically belong near the end.
For example, we may take the story of an unusual robbery. A well-dressed
man goes into a grocery store to get some butter and tries to rob the
grocer. In the ensuing scuffle the would-be robber escapes. A young
woman who happens to be passing sees the end of the fight and pursues
the robber down the street until he runs into a saloon. She calls a
policeman who is standing on the corner and the officer rushes into the
saloon, up three flights of stairs and finds the robber on the roof
behind a chimney. The officer shouts to another policeman, and together
they arrest the robber.

Now, what is the most interesting thing in the story? Probably the
pursuit--a young woman chasing a robber down the street. Ou