Magazine stories are rife with them: The "anecdotal" beginning ("lede"), a tale of some woman (or man) who has suffered from a malady, overcome a common problem, or what have you. Or maybe you've seen ...

Back when I was getting a degree in journalism, we spent so much class time talking about how to write a good “lede” that the subject should have been its own minor. We scribbled and rewrote our ...