lue.
This will show the student how to look for the feature of a
story.

5. Write the lead of any fire story in as many different ways as
possible, striving in each one to play up the same feature.

6. Study a simple fire story and try to imagine what unexpected
things might occur in connection with the fire which would be of
greater interest than the fire itself. Show that these would be
features and that they do not fall within the answers to the
reader's customary questions--i. e., they are unexpected.

7. Write fire stories with features in unexpected attendant
circumstances.

8. Make up lists of dead and injured; notice how the newspapers
arrange and punctuate these lists.

9. Study fire stories with more than one feature. Work out the
possibilities in any given fire along these lines.

10. Write fire stories in which there is more than one feature
worth a place in the lead. Try various combinations in the lead
to discover the happiest arrangement. Show how one of many
striking features may be of so much importance as to drive the
other features entirely out of the lead.

EXERCISES FOR THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

1. Count the number of words in the sentences and paragraphs of
representative newspaper stories.

2. Practice writing fire leads that might be printed alone without
the rest of the story.

3. Take a fire lead and experiment with various beginnings to show
the possibilities:

a. Noun--experiment with and without articles.
b. Infinitive--Distinguish infinitives in "to" and
in "-ing."
c. _That_ clause.
d. Prepositional phrase.
e. Temporal clause.
f. Causal clause.
g. Others.

Show that any of these beginnings may be used in the
playing up of any one feature.

4. Study how a name may overshadow an interesting story; determine
when a name is worth first place in a lead. Study the practice
of representative papers in this--do not hesitate to show how a
paper has been illogical in beginning certain stories with an
unknown name, for everything one sees in a newspaper is not
ipso facto good usage in newspaper writing.

5. In students' stories, notice what the principal verb says