The opener

I flatter myself that I can write a news story.  What I definitely can not do is write an opener.  The most common comment I have received over the last few weeks is a variant on: "That's great, Jean.  Can we just have another look at the first two pars...."

This is a great opener.  Says it all in three sweet words.  Totally grammatically incorrect.  But it hooks you in and that's all it has to do.  Why would you go to any other shop - this one's open 24 hours.

So why is it that I can't get the hang of the opener?  There seem to be some rules.  There's the who, what, where, when and why rule.  Which means that you need to answer all these questions in the first sentence, or two.  Which can be tricky, but not impossible.

Then there's the 'immediacy' rule.  You might think: "New research published today shows that doctors make rubbish journalists,"  is beautiful.  But have a look at a newspaper.  Almost invariably the first sentence of a report on research will take the much more clunky (in my opinion) form of: "Doctor's make rubbish journalists, shows new research published today."  I have learnt this rule and applied it almost religiously, despite thinking the results are invariably ugly.  I once tried bending the rule and moving the today bit back to nearer the start of the sentence.  I was reminded of the immediacy rule.

So I can apply these rules, but I still don't seem to be able to write a good opener.  Today my piece on bariatric surgery was returned four times before the opener was deemed acceptable by the health editor.  And you know it still wont get published.