Enter the five Ws, a few details, and the quotations you have. You get lede drafts in three orders, a news story laid out in inverted-pyramid order with a dateline and quotations attributed the news way, and checks on lede length, paragraph length, relative-time words, and the headline. Honest templates, no AI. Free, no sign-up.
Headline, byline, and dateline
Present tense, active voice, no final period. Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns.
Use your style guide’s abbreviation for the state.
The five Ws
Use the day of the week for anything within a week; avoid “yesterday” and “today”.
Add the who and the what to see lede drafts.
The lede
The rest of the story
Include the how here. Put the next most important fact first.
Lede — answer who, what, and when in one sentence.
Nut graf — say why this story matters to the reader.
Detail — add the next most important facts, including how.
Quotation — add something a person said, with their name and title.
Background — add context that explains how we got here.
Checks on form, not accuracy. They cannot tell you whether the story is true or newsworthy.
Add the who and the what (or write a lede) to run the checks.
| Part | It answers | Usual length |
|---|---|---|
| Headline | What is this about, in a few present-tense words? | A line or two |
| Lede | Who did what, and when? Where and why if they fit. | One sentence, about 35 words or fewer |
| Nut graf | Why does this matter to the reader? | One or two sentences |
| Details and quotations | What are the next most important facts, and who says so? | Short paragraphs |
| Background | What led up to this? | Short paragraphs, last |
News stories use the inverted pyramid: the widest, most important facts at the top and the least important at the bottom. A reader who stops after the lede still has the news, and an editor who needs space can cut from the end without losing it. That is why a news story has no conclusion.
Try an example fills in an invented story about a school car wash. The school, the pantry, and the people are made up for this page. The first lede draft reads:
Lede draft 1
MAPLE RIDGE, Mich. — Students at Maple Ridge Middle School raised $4,200 for the Eastside Food Pantry Friday.
The dateline puts the city in capitals, then the state, then a dash. The draft is a starting point: a stronger lede might lead with the number or the pantry. Quotations take their attribution after the first sentence, as in “We were hoping to raise $2,000,” eighth-grader Priya Desai said. “This blew us away.”
The template does not apply the AP Stylebook for you. Its rules cover many more cases, including state abbreviations, and a school newsroom or class may follow a different guide, so confirm each point against the guide you have been assigned.