The inverted pyramid is the heart and soul of a journalist. It’s their foundation. It’s the first thing they learn, memorize, and try to fill accordingly with every news story.
It entails putting the most important information first and the mundane details last. After all, the majority of people won’t read the whole article no matter which way you write it, so it’s best to get the important and interesting information to them first.
But then you have PR Specialists writing stories and these stories just can’t incorporate the inverted pyramid style of writing. These stories use the inverted time glass style.
Best explained by Bruce Desilva in Telling True Stories, “The very best endings often do something else: They offer a twist that readers don’t see coming but that nevertheless strikes them as exactly right.”
A journalist can write a news story perfectly well, but when you let a PR professional take up the task, they can write it in such a way that combines both the narrative style and the news story style.
As a result, you have a reader craving more than a journalist could make them crave. Of course, they will hate you for putting such a twist, but deep down, love it so much they will read your next release.
