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 what sticks in the mind.

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

Working from home, Rachel Barry, a middle-aged married mother, conned BT into revealing the ex-directory numbers of celebrities, sports stars and people in the news ...

Last week Mrs Barry was convicted by Harrow magistrates of 12 offences of obtaining personal data and selling it to national newspapers ...

It is believed Mrs Barry had been operating the scam for several years and had earned thousands of pounds. She pleaded guilty to 12 offences and was fined a total of £1,200 and ordered to pay costs of £800.

Last night the Observer was unable to contact Mrs Barry by telephone. She is ex-directory.

Observer, quoted in Writing for Journalists, Wynford Hicks with Sally Adams and Harriet Gilbert, Routledge 1999.

Writing tips

• Echo, but don't repeat, your introduction
• Finish with a statement that's positive or negative, but not timid
• Put the powerful words at the end in the 'punch' position (It was my
     mother, cold and dead. Dickens)

Further reading
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