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A person reading a good intro momentarily forgets everything else in life. They must..read..on.. and on..and on. The first rule is - begin by exaggeration. Intros are spin. They are about Angle and Attack Ban opinion. It is the moment of connection, of drama, and wit, even. Puns are OK at times. Be accurate. Use facts carefully. Start with the worst/best ones. To be accurate also means to be delicate - truth and accuracy are subtle commodities not ideally subjected to formulas, cliches, or stereotypes. But use cliches at times . Every intro is individual. Rarely use names. Use jobs, (a care worker, a teacher, a taxi driver). Use ages only if relevant to the story. ..except in court cases when they are a must. Join facts together - if there are two angles, try pushing them into one sentence. Ban commas. Never have two sentences. 1. Put the intro as one paragraph on its own. 2. Use active verbs: . Not 'Bush criticised by war opponents', but 'war opponents criticise Bush.' 3. Restrict length: 17 - 25 words 4. Choose the points of the story that have the most impact: Surprise Unexpected Latest Worst impact 5. Rarely start with a sub clause: " Unless Mr Blair decides not to go to Iraq, soldiers will be sent out there within three weeks." The bit in bold is a sub clause (and it needs a comma). The sentence would be better put: "British soldiers will be sent to Iraq within three weeks unless Mr Blair decides to cancel his plans." Be simple, be clear, be brief . Checklist: Ask yourself - can I cut any words? Can I say this easily? Imagine you are talking to someone doing the washing up Examples - a curious intro and part of a story from the Daily Echo: JUST when you thought it was safe to go back to the fridge... Linda Cooper was shocked and stunned to find a black widow spider in grapes she had been giving to her children. The mum-of-two from Wimborne had bought the red seedless grapes from Tesco's at Fleetsbridge and put them in the fridge to stay fresh. In the following days she regularly took out handfuls to put in ten-year-old Edward and five-year-old Sophie's lunch boxes. However on the third day she spotted something moving and discovered the potentially-deadly arachnid which can be lethal to small children and pets. Linda, of Grove Road, said: "I was taking little bunches of grapes, washing them and putting them in their lunch boxes and then on the Wednesday I went to get some grapes for myself and I saw something move. First: Nobody ever thought it was unsafe to go to the fridge. 2. The second paragraph should be the intro 3 It's not till para 4 that we see the spider can kill - this should be in the intro too. 4. She has told this story as a narrative - blow by blow - and it hasn't really worked How might this intro be improved? < A mother found one of the deadliest spiders on earth in grapes she was feeding her children for lunch. And so on... you have a try. Here's another from the Echo that breaks the rules above: Which rules? WITH the financial storms battering the global banking sector, the 4,000 job losses at JP Morgan were all but inevitable. Bournemouth's largest private sector employer is the bedrock of its financial services industry. But credit losses and falling revenues have forced it to axe 4,000 of its 90,000 staff worldwide, as reported in yesterday's Echo. Precisely how the 4,000 redundancies will impact on Chaseside remains to be seen.