Writing endings

Often we concentrate on openings and fizzle out at the end, forgetting that some people read beginnings and endings first, and the final note is sometimes what sticks in the mind. With reports, I don't think it matters if a section ends abruptly, but with media articles and blogs, it does.

A clever ending
An example of a clever ending is quoted in Writing for Journalists by Sally Adams and Harriet Gilbert, Routledge, 1999. This article was written for Observer years ago, but the topic still has relevance today.

'BT is tightening up its telephone security system after its confidential list of ex-directory numbers was penetrated – by a woman from Ruslip.'

[She sold this data to newspapers and was eventually caught and convicted.]

'Last night the Observer was unable to contact [X] by telephone. She is ex-directory.

Writing tips

• Echo your introduction, but don't repeat it word for word.
• Make a strong, not a timid, statement – it can be positive or negative.
• Put the powerful words at the end in the 'punch' position.
   'It was my mother, cold and dead.' Dickens.

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