In public relations, you're sunk if you don't hook the audience right away. So I don't advocate writing a lot of hard, straight-news headlines and intros (first sentences).
"Soft" headlines and first sentences aren't sensitive and emotional. They're also called "grabber" headlines and leads, because they grab the attention of readers -- and that's what you want to do.
There are dozens of ways to do grabber headlines and intros. Here are three proven winners:
1) Ask a question
"What if you came home and found a suitcase on your porch full of twenty dollar bills?"
"Can your car really run on recycled vegetable oil from Burger King?"
"Would our high school students do better in school if we simply started the school day 30 minutes later, giving them more sleep?"
Every story, oped and speech asks questions. Pick the most primal and important question from the piece and lead with it. Then spend the rest of the piece answering that question from all angles.
Asking a question is an easy way to give a piece structure, conflict and drama. It forces you to get to the heart of the piece.
2) Give it a twist
Take a line from literature and twist it, or find a cliche that fits the piece and turn it into something inventive.
Whatever you're writing about, there's a fitting cliche or famous line of literature that you can bend to your purposes.
3) Tell the story
The inverted pyramid gives readers the most important details first, then tells them things that are less and less important until there's nothing left to say.
The old inverted pyramid is a useful structure for informing people quickly, and essential for writing a hard news intro and headline. It's just a terrible way to tell a story.
A narrative intro starts from the beginning. It sets up the conflict and gives the readers heroes and villains, fighting over something of value. A narrative structure is a good way to keep the audience.
They have to keep reading to the end to find out what happens, because you don't give away the ending in the first sentence, as you do in the inverted pyramid.
You have to be careful about the headline with a narrative lead. If you put on a traditional, hard news headline, it'll spoil the whole works by giving away the end. This is one case where you don't mix and match headlines and intros.