By David Poulson
Stephen King recently offered advice useful for journalists covering the environment.
I don’t mean covering it as a horror story – although that’s certainly a reader engagement strategy we all use often enough.
The prolific author of scary tales like The Shining and Carrie and of the current mini-series Under the Dome, tells the Atlantic about crafting first sentences.  He spends months – even years – rewriting them, often while lying in bed before falling asleep.
Any writer can benefit from what King has to say about minimalist first sentences chock full of meaning and that establish the voice that carries through the piece. Follow that link; read what he says.
That said, no journalist in the deadline-a-minute crunch for news can afford the luxury of nightly rewrites while lying in bed. My students panic when I suggest they spend half their writing time before deadline crafting a lede.
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