Writing about Laura Dekker: Even Pros Make Mistakes

I just finished reading about a teenager who’s the youngest person to sail solo around the world. It’s a remarkable story and – if you read it in today’s newspaper, as I did – an instructive one for those of us who get our kicks at a writing desk rather than a sailboat.

Point #1: Teenagers should not follow Laura Dekker’s example – missing school to take a risky lone voyage around the world.

Point #2: The Associated Press feature about Laura Dekker would have benefited from an editor’s sharp eyes.

Take a look at the first paragraph:

Laura Dekker set a steady foot aboard a dock in St. Maarten on Saturday, ending a yearlong voyage aboard a sailboat named “Guppy” that apparently made her the youngest person ever to sail alone around the globe, though her trip was interrupted at several points.

TMI, as young people today are fond of saying: Too Much Information.

  • Laura Dekker ended a yearlong voyage around the world on Saturday
  • she landed in St. Maarten
  • she sailed alone
  • her sailboat was named The Guppy
  • her trip was interrupted several times
  • she’s probably the youngest person to make the journey solo

My husband, who shares my TMI complaint, suggested a better opening sentence for the story:

Right now most 16-year-old girls are probably thinking about their next text message. 

That’s a succinct attention-getter that prepares you for a story about an unusual 16-year-old girl.

And that brings me to my second suggestion: The AP story takes 242 words (in a 653-word article) to get around to telling you how old Laura Dekker is. That information should have appeared in the first paragraph: After all, Laura’s age (16) is the reason her accomplishment is newsworthy.

There’s a lesson here for all of us: Even topnotch writers like Judy Fitzpatrick, the reporter who wrote this story, can benefit from having another reader take a look at what we’ve written.

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