The Big Picture Story is a hard news story with a narrative lead. So in this tipsheet, we'll talk about narrative leads and how they work.

The narrative lead is a compromise between traditional newswriting and narrative (the techniques used by most fiction writers) writing.

It has three key sections. First, the reporter writes a 3 to 6 paragraph (and remember that paragraphs in a news story always are one or two sentences in length) chronological narrative that relates a story about a particular person or event. Secondly, the reporter writes a nut graf, which summarizes the news angle -- the stuff that would normally go in the first graf of a regular news story. Thirdly, the reporter finishes off the story by either writing the rest of the story in an inverted pyramid or in a series of inverted pyramids (writing in blocks.).

Example. Let's assume the Board of Supervisors just approved an increase in the cost of tuition at LSU. Here's the way that might appear in a newspaper.

SUMMARY LEAD

The LSU Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Monday to raise tuition at LSU by $300 a semester despite protests from many students that they could not afford the 7 percent increase.

NARRATIVE LEAD

    Jane Jones spent the last four years of her high school years working to get ready for college.

    It wasn't just academics that took up her time, though.

     For Jane, money was the major problem. Her parents are divorced and neither have the extra cash to help Jane through college.

    Jane managed to save more than $4000 toward her college tuition. That was enough, she figured, to get her through the first three years at LSU. After that? Well, maybe she could get some scholarships and, if not, perhaps she could find a job waiting tables.

    All of those plans are on hold today, however. For on Monday, two weeks before Jane was scheduled to start at LSU, the Board of Supervisors decided to raise tuition by $300 a semester. That means her $4000 won't even pay the tuition for the first three years.

    "I don't know what I'm going to do," Jane said as she sat in her mother's modest home in Brusly. "I may have to go to Southeastern or someplace like that for my freshman year."

     WHY?

Narrative leads are used because they put a human face on governmental decisions. People love to read about other people -- they don't particularly like to read about government.