You have been waiting for years and years for this. Ok, two and a half days. And now it has arrived.
As stated in Friday’s post, the Stupendously Ultimate First Line Challenge’s rules will be ill-defined and the winners subjectively chosen, so let’s all just take a deep breath and agree that we will not get angry at the stupendously ultimate contest organizational committee (which has one member) and will enjoy this contest for the good hearty fun that it is — in fact, I’ve just been assured by the surgeon general that participation in this contest counts as three servings of vegetables.
The rules — er, on second thought let’s call them guidelines:
1) All may participate, whether agented or unagented, published or unpublished, living or unliving.
2) Leave in the comments section one (1) first line to a novel, memoir, work of nonfiction or other such matter intended to be the opening of a book — it may be your work in progress or something you have crafted for the purposes of the Stupendously Ultimate First Line Challenge. A second line may be included if it completes the first line, however aforementioned second line’s necessity will be judged with great scrutiny since this is a first line contest (and a stupendously ultimate one at that).
3) Entries may be made between now and sometime late Wednesday night Pacific time. In Thursday’s post I will put together a list of nominees for the grand prize and you the readers will have an opportunity to vote on the ultimate winner, which will be announced on Monday. (That is, if I can figure out how to enable voting.)
That’s it! New rules will be introduced haphazardly, so keep an eye on the comments section.
And now the prizes. The prizes!! The grand prize winner will receive the satisfaction of a job well done, the esteem of his/her fellow blog readers, and…… a partial manuscript critique from the stupendously ultimate contest organizational committee of one! (Or some other equally stupendously ultimate non-cash prize if the winner doesn’t need a manuscript critique.)
It was a dark and stormy night. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Who will add their first line to the ranks of the greatest opening lines in literature? Let’s find out.
There are some men who look as if they were born to wear the cassock and others who appear as if they are overdue to return a rented Halloween costume, but after the Sheriff dropped the exhumation papers onto Father Jellinek’s desk, the contrast of the priest’s brickfaced rage against the simple white collar and black shirt gave him an appearance which was nothing short of demonic.
There are days when everything goes right, and then there are days when everything is FUGGDUP.
From nonfiction WIP – “7 Ways You Screw Up Your Life and How to Unscrew It”
One wing of the huge complex exploded at dawn on February 8, 1945. Two men died in that instant. Everyone else was already dead.
“I was unaware of being watched.”
From a short story WIP.
Thanks!
“Nuk Nuk was the only gay Eskimo in his tribe.”
“Looks like we’ve got a drunk behind us.”
Alice Baies never thought she would be pleased to see so much garbage.
Nathan,
For those who don’t have accounts here, how do you verify a winner for someone who is posting with a temporary name? Obviously the winning line would have to match the partial… have I just answered my own question?
Thanks.
I leaned against Mother on account of my afflicted leg.
-from my middle grade novel
Anon-
Not sure I understand the question, but let’s just use the honor system.
It was a beautiful funeral, very tasteful, very somber. Her grandmother would have hated it.
By the way, Dwight’s first line is more like a first paragraph. Not criticizing – just jealous!
“Never killed a cop before. Never had to.”
Yes, it’s fiction.
“Finding the bedroom door locked when you arrive at your mistress’s abode is never good news, even if your mistress is not human.”
Here is the question the people of my hometown of Vigilant, Michigan want answered: Why did I, Grace Johnson, an African-American high school senior, an honor student, take two bullets to protect the life of the white supremacist jackass Jonathan Gilmore?
There’s this girl I’ve never really met that I know everything in the world about.
“I said, OPEN it.”
First line from my short story, “Safe in the House” about a mob hit gone wrong.
You can read the rest at
http://josephinedamian.blogspot.com
Nathan, are blatant self promotes ok?
How about entering more than once?
Lots of stiff competition already!
It all started with the cat.
mg novel
“The funeral was Tuesday. It was seven days before she could speak.”
Josephine-
I think self-promotion is ok as long as it is karmically coupled with promotion on the Internets of the SUFLC.
Multiple entries are ok, within reason.
When pigeons reach sexual maturity, they pair off.
“There are only two kinds of people in the world,” Frankie told me as he took a revolver out of the drawer and placed it on the desk between us. “There’s the ants and there’s the ant eaters. Guess which I am?”
Bangkok Jimmy
Isn’t it peculiar how a man seated in his pickup truck on the side of an isolated country road with a pistol in his mouth will consider getting out of the cab so that he doesn’t make a mess of things?
Nathan, can we enter twice? 😀
Kidding.
The rattle the door made as it closed reminded Sean Kelly of a boat-cave gate slamming down, a sound effect imagined into memory from stories his dad had told him as a child.
“I am not a cat,” said the cat.
From my completed YA Fantasy MS.
PERCY KILBOURNE studied the girl’s soulless eyes.
–Kilbourne, a completed psychological thriller
IT IS SO much easier to hunt when the prey doesn’t even know it’s being hunted.
–The Hunter, a WIP psychological thriller
Since Nathan said multiple entries are OK within reason, here’s my second first line (which is technically two, but he did say they weren’t rules, just guidelines, right? right?!)
The last thing Heath expected to see on the day he started his quest to save the Princess of Baloria was a teenaged girl sitting in the middle of the street, covered in mud, crying, and naked. Of course, it’s not as if Chloe had expected a knight in shining armor.
From my other YA Fantasy MS.
His hands just looked dirty to casual eyes, a slight darkening on the knuckles, a shadow on his palm.
From my just started WIP – ten pages and counting!
Thanks, Nathan!
“God, no. Here they come.”
Opening line from my suspence thriller WIP, A STUDY IN FEAR
Church Lady, good one. I got the creeps from those just few short words.
Okay, I’ll delurk for this. Here’s mine:
I didn’t realize I’d come into season. I thought I had worms.
(from WIP fantasy)
Kate Melton inhaled the last tunnel of smoke deep into her lungs, wondering what happened to her life.
Short fiction WIP
When he told me he no longer loved me, I fell to my knees.
“I like an unprovoked attack just as much as the next merciless predator, kid, but if you want to sell the ass off something, you got to know more than just who to eat — you also got to know who not to eat.”
from incomplete WIP
“Her children played pick up sticks in the next room as the fat man forced himself into her.”
Opening line from WINDWARD BLUFF, my woman’s fiction.
OK, I’m done. Off to school.
Go, Conduit, go!
From the depths of secret fears . . .
. . . the nightmare wells up, binding the dreamer in a familiar darkness that expands until there is nothing but unrelieved, inky shadow.
Novel in revision: Assassin’s Choice.
I was six years old the first time I watched a man die; my father put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Entry #2, another middle grade:
“Have you ever stopped to consider, Mr. Edwards, that it might be your glum disposition that’s keeping you from finding a suitable wife?” asked the grey wolf.
“My disposition?” asked the frog, who in every aspect resembled an average pond frog, except this one was holding a small teacup and becoming visibly agitated.
A discordant vibration hung for an instant in the steamy garage, and by the time it faded off I think we were all holding our breath.
from current YA WIP, Finders Keepers
redo: I had a typo, can I start over? (and Nathan, can you delete my original?)
I meant to post–
“Elizabeth found dead relatives meaningless.”
Through the attic’s solitary window, I watched a meaty spider build its web between the eaves and the ivy.
-WIP Palace of Light
I had six zits; I was chomping on a wad of Original Bazooka and wearing one of those god-awful black hairnet thingies.
From my YA
OK, entry #2:
Sometimes places—places he hadn’t known existed the day before—beckoned to Aidan.
The footprints ended abruptly, just as the boy’s parents had said they would.
VANISHED, upper MG novel
Jerry hated his job – and not just because it involved collecting bad ideas – he hated his job because, on February 14th, 1975, he dropped a very bad idea – accidentally, of course – into the head of a five-year-old boy. Ten years later, that boy caused Armageddon.
From my WIP, THE IDEA GUY.
“I didn’t start out trying to change the world. Originally all I wanted was an oil change.”
This was the BRILLIANT first line I wrote to our new novel. My writing partner took it out. Alas. Maybe if it wins here she’ll let me put it back in.
Well, I like it a lot, anne.
My life changed forever the day Ray Earl got hisself shot on the paintball range of the Back Hills Country Club.
From WIP “Goodbye Ray Earl”
Far up on a topmost shelf, behind an old and well-worn first edition of Huntley Mann’s The Fine Art of Miniatures and Doll Craft–long dusty since the tome’s contents had been learned by rote for so many years gone by now–there was concealed a small hole, just the size of a cufflink, precisely chiseled through the back of the bookshelf as if it were no more than perhaps a common knothole.
“Help you? I can’t even help myself; what am I supposed to do, hide you under my wimple?”
~ fantasy novel, complete
In a perfect world, every guy would prefer women who wore sweat pants, ate tons of chocolate, and demanded foot rubs while eyeballing Sleepless In Seattle for the zillionth time.
From completed romantic comedy: “Ain’t That A Kick.”
It’s tough, living in the shadow of a dead girl.
If there was any trait about him that was of any merit, it was that he was easily forgettable.
(from my work in revision)
They made a home out of Mary’s bones, and called it the dancing legs motel.
From WIP
self promotion disclaimer: i know this is a first line contest, but my first line is puny and cryptic without the rest of the paragraph so…
“She loved the snow. For the tiny pieces of white brought a handle, or rather thousands of tiny handles. Each flake gave presence to the invisible that was already there, but could not be sensed. Riding on her motorcycle in the summer, she could, with effort, believe that she was cutting through the world, everything blurry and unnatural. But this snow, the first of the year, let her see the air separating before her. It allowed her eyes, rather than her mind, to tell her that she was riding in that delicate seam of inexistence. Like tracers hinted at the deadly stream of fellow bullets, so the snow uncloaked the air which was not merely the space between everything, but was comprised of very real and tangible substances: nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and here, in Kiev, Strontium-90 and cesium-137.”
(lit. fic.)
“The gentle leader must not be disturbed.”
– The European Sensibilities of Giants (short fiction)
To look at me, no one would know that the plink-plink-plink sound I was hearing in my head was the sound of that last thread we are often hanging by, splitting apart.
From completed manuscript titled “The Perfect Obit”
Entry #1:
Steve Strohman peered over his gray cubicle wall, a little bald prairie dog checking for coyotes.
–From my short story, “Henry Belfast, Vampire Accountant”
——
Entry #2:
Killing was always just business for me before the prophet murdered my sister.
–Tentative first sentence of as yet unwritten third series book
“The ants were back.”
– novel in progress
Holding a straw dummy wasn’t as fun as one would think; holding one rapidly diminishing under the bludgeoning of an over-testosteroned knight, less so.
From “Bella, Hank and the Gold Dragon”, fantasy humour. Yes, that word is spelled with a ‘u’.
“Who wants to spit in my table’s food?”
From the nonfiction manuscript: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Waiting Tables
First of all Nathan, I would like to thank you for this challenge. It has been a great exercise in writing opening lines for me. These are the two that I think are my best ones from this weekend. One of them will be the opening to my first attempt at NANOWriMO.
1) Jill Jackson pulled into her driveway and was bewildered by the fog surrounding her home, it quickly became terror as the headless body of her husband emerged from the fog and collapsed on the hood.
2) The night started out like any other night, but when Detective Morris got to the scene of the crime, it became a nightmare.
PS. I hope you don’t mind the use of your first name.
Did life perjure itself, or did I?
Barkle Throp absently rubbed a gold tooth with his good nail.
From another humour fantasy novel, “Dance Panda, Dance”.
From The Steel Goodbye, a YA novel in progress:
The rope binding Neve Watson’s wrists was beginning to chafe. Her corset was laced too tight, and in the hazy heat of the airship’s engine room, she imagined she was having trouble breathing.
——————-
One other entry (my last). This one’s from an as-yet-unnamed Science Fiction novel:
Everyone has their story of how they found out Earth had been destroyed: where they were; who they were with; who told them. I was in the brig of the USS Mariner Valley, having been kicked skyside the previous day for failing a health exam.
Just after dark, death grabbed me by the ass.
Darrell and his daughter crouched atop the hillock a half mile downstream from their riverside villa, watching as the gray men destroyed the only home their family had ever had.
From my work in progress, ALDEN RIDGE.
‘I will sail to Heaven and steal the voice of God,’ Sam Graves said.
Rüdiger stood on the broken outer wall of Streitberg castle, plucked a hair from his nose, rubbed it between his finger and thumb, then flicked it away and wiped his hand on his round belly. This siege had gone on long enough.
Scott, this sounds like an openeing line for a period novel. Hope you’re writing one. Love historicals!
My family used to be bridge keepers, until that vicious billy goat incident when my great-grandfather drowned in the river.
I already have so many favorites here. I can’t wait to vote. Here is my entry:
She didn’t even know she needed rescued.
The bomb had a very nice display: green and black with a thin blue border; Hayden couldn’t be sure, alien languages were indecipherable, by definition, but he assumed it was counting down to a messy, very fatal explosion.
From “Hayden Smith : Sardonic Space Cowboy” unfinished humourous sci-fi.
She slipped into the kitchen, only to be halted by the sight of a huge claymore casually leaning against the dishwasher.
A first line I’ve had floating in my head for a while:
“The two biggest traumas in my life were caused by men: when I was eleven-years-old and Andy Rickerson pushed me out of the tree, and my leg broke, and ten years later when Andy’s cousin Ryan got me pregnant and left without a goodbye, giving birth to my daughter, Lolly. Lolly is two now, but the pain is still fresh.”
Knowing that he was about to die, just three weeks shy of turning sixteen, really sucked, and staring into the gaping jaws of the lunging shark less than a yard away, guaranteed that death would be terrifyingly painful.
From Completed YA – The SunCatchers
‘The rush of air ended when Joseph Blackthorn hit the ground.’
WIP: I suspect it’s going to be a horror story 😉
I have a hard wife who demands much of me, and although we’ve been divorced for many years she wants more. As though I had a kingdom of sheep and goats to offer.
Vera regained consciousness to find she was lying naked on the dirt floor of a cavernous pit.
Mystery – 89k
Thank you.
The gates of the Emerald City were rotting.
— The Campus, a completed thriller.
I’d only been in love with her for ten minutes when everything turned to shit.
How to Finish a Thought: For People Who
was a winner in Nathan’s best title contest. Its first line is:
Being able to finish a thought is a useful skill for people who
This is awesome!
That is not a first line – I’m just saying – all these first lines were so much fun to read. I already have a favorite (not mine) that I’m rooting for. When do we vote?!!
Thanks Nathan for running this contest. You are “Da Man!”
The young girl named Frannie Hanson hurried down the narrow road which led to the rather affluent town of Walden Falls where she liked to poison folks.
From a WIP with the working title “Bluetooth” –
Traffic patrol found the candy-apple red, $250,000 extravaganza of convertible hardtop sedan smashed into a tree – no skid marks, a broken guardrail, hood crushed, four-way hazard lights blinking, doors open and a dead body nearby.
Please fix typo—
Arlo shivered and leaned precariously into the urinal as the smells of coffee, penicillin and bad choices wafted up to fill his nostrils.
My death was never reported to the police.
“She’s never coming back.”
Christine, Maryland
Looking out over the ramshackle homes in our neighborhood – tin roofs, crumbling walls, bare-skinned children playing in the dirt – a familiar question comes to mind: What the hell am I doing in Mexico?
memoir wip- Caught: An American’s Tale of Illegal Immigration
#1
Scott did exactly what every smart boyfriend should do: He lied.
#2
About twice a week, my mom would call me on her cell phone to tell me I had a Yogi on my front lawn.
It was just like any other family gathering, except it was the first with all of us dead.
My second:
William Moore wrapped his head in foil for the first time when he was four.
Sorry for the repeat entry – I just created an account. – Melanie
Looking out over the ramshackle homes in our neighborhood – tin roofs, crumbling walls, bare-skinned children playing in the dirt – a familiar question comes to mind: What the hell am I doing in Mexico?
memoir wip – Caught: An American’ Tale of Illegal Immigration
“I, Steven Morgan Carter, being able to read and write, would like to give my stuff away if I die.”
From my completed MG which I’m querying now.
This is entry 2.
Thanks
“Motherfucker.”
Yeah, that’d be Trevor speaking.
“I shuffled my feet and kept my head lowered. She was right. Look at me.”
Entry 3
Thanks!
My name isn’t Ishmael, but it should be.
“Normally you wouldn’t keep secrets if you’re on a plane making an emergency landing into the ocean. But I’m not normal.”
Entry 4
Thanks
This was the last time I let a wyvern talk me into anything.
Jack had never been at gunpoint before. It wasn’t nearly as romantic as it seemed in the movies.
From “The Great Texas Trailer Park Escape
Hi Linnea–yes, it’s a historical. It’ll be a while before before it’ll really start to take shape. I’m focusing on finishing up two other projects. But I have the first couple chapters, and get to this one whenever I have a chance.
Enough networking–back to the contest. 🙂
Yo Jess– you’ve got a dangling modifier (“giving birth to my daughter”) in your 1st sentence, which makes it sound as if Andy’s cousin Ryan is the one giving birth.
Twenty-five feet: that’s how far I can walk before running out of oxygen tubing.
My father’s voice whispered in my ear, “A single moment”. I nearly wet my pants.
From River of Possibilities, a paranormal mystery novel.
PS: Thanks for allowing more than one entry 🙂
“My husband stood in the driveway waving his arms around as if blaming me for the kitten stuck in the tree, so I took the gun out of my handbag and shot the furry problem out of the tree and then pointed the gun at my arm-waving husband and smiled. I would be solving lots of problems today.”
This is not from any work in progress. I just prefer puppies is all.
🙂
Another day on the Gold Farm begins.
To my credit, when I received the letter informing me I’d been named in Nicholas Moulsen’s will, my first reaction was an incredible sadness at his passing.
I have two:
#1
“On a November night three weeks before he was murdered, Preston Lomax was making a list of all the people who wanted to kill him.”
#2
“Rachel Scanlon stood on the corner of Broadway and 94th Street, without a single key in her pocket.”
Jenny is totally wasted, sprawled on the hood of the Caprice, blinking at the big black sparkling sky spinning above her.
The throne of Norida had remained empty for twelve years.
My first line entry:
“If it was up to me, it would rain exactly 14.3% of the time.”
Mortimer McGurney arose from the comfort of his mahogany platform bed wiping sleep from his eyes and looking around with the kind of dazed awareness familiar to those having experienced an all night binge of drinking what is considered technically, a lethal poison.
On the north end of Main Street storefronts subside into empty lots where ghosts of private detectives watch the city on eternal stakeout.
The sound of metal clashing against something unnatural echoed through the stately trees, ancient witnesses to the battle of life and death going on beneath them.
~urban fantasy in progress
“Who let that clown in here?”
From a medical romance entitled “Prescription: Marriage”
Cheers, Julie Rowe
The End. Silence replaced the distant screams.
This is the first line of a book I am writing. Obviously, not a self-help book. 🙂
First entry:
Don’t trust November.
“Where None Embrace”, completed literary/mystery novel.
Second entry:
This is a love story, told at the ending of the world.
“An End to Mown Grass”, SF Novella in progress.
The visions began the night Operation Pied Piper went into play, as if the growing threat to my home awakened the ability.
Historical Fantasy (YA)
My first thought was, “There’s so much blood.” Actually, that’s not true, that’s just something I’ve always heard people usually say in this situation. Really, my first thought was, “What the fuck?”
From “How To Kill A Consultant”
You never really get used to dead people.
— Carnivores
Entry #2
Does it mean anything that the Playboy Headquarters is right next to the Knickerbocker Hotel where I am to celebrate my wedding reception?
WIP: Mara and James
“Dad was taking too long. Colton wiped his nose on his sleeve, snorted and glanced out the window to see if Dad had arrived in the last twenty seconds.”
MG paranormal thriller
I’m resigned to being the brother of a martyr.
From my novel, Samuel’s Dream
Like most people, I prefer that problems be solved with very little of my own direct participation, so it was with unconcealed annoyance that I responded to mother’s request that I fetch Jacob from the bottom of the pool.
-R.C.
P.S. Thanks Nathan.
The Seasons of the Gods are not the seasons of man. While Winter still reigns, the hearts and spirits of mankind are darkened as they huddle together against the Cold that permeates all, gathering around the hearth fires and daring little beyond their walls.
From my PiP (Project in Progress).
Of all the primordial elements, only fire obeys the whim of time.
She’s missing. It’s what the papers say.
From my WIP “Ripples”
No one needed the confirmation.
On it’s own, a hand moved to her neck, grazed the soft skin it found there with fingers longing for violent touch.
Thanks Nathan! Some awesome first lines here guys!
She didn’t want to remember the toe tag. The way it sat still on gray skin in the chilled air. The smell of the room had reminded her of senior year in biology. She’d been against dissecting the fetal pigs at first. Abortion had never appealed to her. But in the end she cracked open the skull, scraped out and identified the parts of the brain for extra credit.
A little long, but from my WIP “Home Fires”
Entry from Time Journal #1 of Sam Altair:
From my science fiction/alternate history “Dunallon”
Thanks Nathan! I just found your blog!
Amy had been dead for four days when I met her at the facility.
Grabbing the pole of the bed halfway to falling out of it, Alex Stafford woke up ready to run.
From the current WIP, that has lots of titles but none I like.
A number of these sentences need an editor.
Okay… first to dennis r = ew!!
to Susan Sundwell = LOL!!
to Nathan — as for voting, I haven’t tried it yet, but you can add a POLL element to your blog which would probably facilitate voting once you have the finalists narrowed down.
When the blade slid in between my second and third rib, I didn’t feel it. At least, not at first.
From my WIP A Midnight Dreary…
Cool contest!
Nathan,
I’m not sure blog readers should be voting. What’s to keep people from voting multiple times?
Am I saying I don’t trust people? Maybe I don’t trust myself. After all, the prize is a good one.
#1 Dr. Richardson knew he was spending too much time with the dead girl.
#2 Once, not so very long ago, Mother Chen was a plump, busy, happy woman with three sons.
From a couple of short pieces. I’m not usually a strong first line person (I prefer to build to the end of the first paragraph), but these made me happy.
Dair Curator had lost count of the number of women he’d slept with.
So far, I’ve got 8 stand outs, first lines that, were I to pick up that book in a store, I’d read on.
Nathan, more than anything else this has been an incredible learning experience for me; by asking myself exactly why these 8 lines worked, and why the others didn’t. More important, how can I apply what I discovered to my own work?
Marti, I want to give some homage to your first line by saying: “There are days when everything goes right, and then there are days when the nitwits in your writer’s group make you wanna bang your head against the wall.”
From nonfiction WIP- “7 Ways You Screw Up Your Life by Joining a Writer’s Group.”
A wail of death — her earliest memory.
“Ignoring the stewardesses’ urgent instructions, Stanford Clark dropped his book, grabbed his keys, and headed into the bathroom.”
The Sunday sun sinks low in the sky and the time has come.
— from my novel, “A Life of Fire”
#1
He held my beating heart in the palm of his hand and laughed at the weapon he had just acquired: me.
#2
Jessie tried on his human skin and found it had gotten far too small.
Sorry, some typo demon infected my previous entry.
Here’s the first lines of three losely connected novels-in-progress about the Romans in Germania and Britannia.
A Land Unconquered
Rome celebrated.
Eagle of the Sea
“I wonder what those Germans are up to.”
Caledonia Defiant
Cailtharn stood amidst the carnage.
“I. Have. Had. It.” Bess Fielding slammed her hands on the desk and got up, tapping her fingers to shut down the hologlobe.
When God falls asleep at the wheel something bad is bound to happen.
Jenny stared at the card from the plain gray envelope she’d just opened. It bore the image of a flying saucer that had landed in a desert setting, with a cuteish, gray-skinned, bug-eyed alien waving in a friendly manner in the foreground.
–from a short story that recently earned me an enraged rejection. I think that story pushes some buttons…
The ritual was one of Rekare’s memories, a part of her life entwined so deeply with the complex fabric of the twelve years of her life that she couldn’t remember a time when the hot, intense, end of summer did not contain it.
–from a fantasy novel in progress, and this is my last one. I promise.
Zigor leaned against a shop wall on Carrer de Montcada and watched the frenetic activity outside the Picasso Museum.
–The Weeping Woman, a WIP (but the first three chapters are done! Hint, hint…)
It was a time of Miles,Coltrain,and Warhol; a time when the answer was blowing in the wind and we were all Dharma bums howling on the Coney Island of the Mind while the English were reinventing Rock-n-Roll and men eighteen to thirty-five were looking for some way out of the draft.
This is the first line
from my novel ‘DISCONTENT’
Thanks & Cheers!
Eric / email: adibat@mac.com
Here’s my other one:
The first thing Rebecca remembered about Spain was the guitar music – not the strident guitar licks of post-Vietnam War rock, but dulcet flamenco notes which crept into her psyche with soothing, exotic sweetness.
At the very least, I think that if bloggers are allowed to vote, no one should be able to vote for themselves.
The whole mess could have been totally avoided, Alice Miggleton would later muse coldly, if only Bootsie had for gawdsake been able to leave the damned dead thing alone.
You can have more than one go? Okay, here’s another..
‘Everyone likes to imagine that they will utter some final words of profound wisdom when Death comes to claim them, but when it came for Victor Murillo, the best he could manage was ‘Oh, bugger’.’
Victor’s Will, after ditching the boring stuff at the start of the first version…
If I were Italian I’d be 90% more interesting. I guess if I were half Italian I’d be 45% more interesting, which isn’t bad. Since I’m not, I should at least be able to go to Italy, where I could eat some excellent Fettuccini Alfredo and antipasti. I mean, is that really so much to ask?
YA novel
It’s not that I don’t believe in miracles; I just don’t have time to wait in line.
(Chick Lit WIP)
“You’re going straight to hell listening to that music” my mother screamed,pounding on my bedroom door as I was groovin to Billie Holiday
singing “Strange Fruit”. This is Hell and my mother is the Devil.
From my YA novel: STRANGE FRUIT
Thanks- Bags of Fun
email: he.art@tmo.blackberry.net
Anonymous 5:57 PM, I’m with you! I say: NO voting for yourself! But I guess we gotta wait for “The Hills” to be over before we hear back from N8.
I’ve got it narrowed down now to a first choice, and two runner ups (runners up? runner uppers? well, you know what I mean). First, second, and third.
JoZ
Wow. Some of these are REALLY good.
Okay, here’s mine that falls totally within the range of the guidelines:
I guessed what he was as soon as I saw his eyes.
from a short story called “Last Night at Blackwell’s” — about a vampire, of course
The rhythmic pounding of hooves beat through the hot air of the gray Tuscan dawn.
From my Historical novel:
THE GENERAL’S SON
And since cj cheated and used a whole paragraph because of short sentences, I’m going to try this one, even though I will fully understand, Nathan, if you disqualify it:
Escalante, Utah. July. About 105 in the shade. You have to buy ice cream cones in cups if you want to eat the stuff before it runs all over your hand. You have to carry a bottle of water with you just to walk a block. You sweat through an average of three shirts per day — even with the air conditioning going full blast.
Really, it’s no place for a half-vampire who passes out in bright sunlight.
It’s from my second half-vampire YA novel, a completed manuscript.
I agree w/ Anonymous about voting for our own stuff. Personal taste will also play a big part in the voting (EX: SciFi writer may not care for YA, etc). For me, I think I’ll pass on the voting altogether but the SUFLC has been a blast – Thanks Nathan & all participants! (There’s some good stuff goin’ on out there!)Y’all are awesome.
Great contest, Nathan!
“It’s called Tofurkey.”
“Bright Gods, free me of this geas!”
From my fantasy novel.
adrianne@indra.com
My name is Hart. I am a Gentleman of Science; a modest and patient man who has put his trust in logic.
From my Victorian sci-fi novel “The Augmented Geologist”
I was right: Nathan is getting swamped. So, er, I’m going to add to the swamping with a second (and last! really!) entry. My first, waaaay up there at the beginning, is the first line of a time-travel novel. This one is the first line of a short story:
Diana was waiting for Carpenter when he returned to his office after witnessing her killer’s execution.
The sidewalk pulsed with Desire
as I saw a bodega swarmed with people from two to eighty, men playing dominoes drinking sodas and beers, cigarettes hanging from pouted defiant lips while teens selling illegal contraband blasting loud salsa and ‘marengi’ mingled with sweating men in undershirts flirting with the ever smiling Chiquita’s in shorts revealing beautiful legs and curvaceous rear-ends,idling about the wooden carts selling hand shaved ices flavored with syrups poured from reused rum bottles into cardboard cups.
First Line of second chapter: DISCONTENT
Thank You –
Eric / email: adibat@mac.com
“Several murders occurred simultaneously.”
On the matter of voting — I haven’t yet decided how it’s going to work, but I’m leaning towards a poll that includes the finalists with the ability to do a write-in vote. Yes, people would be able to vote multiple times, but I’m hoping both the honor system and the number of non-participants who vote will outweigh any overzealousness on the part of the nominees.
An ice cold ball of trepidation rolled down Lydia Wilson’s spine as she waited her turn in the security line at the airport.
#2
The funky malodor of men ripe from combat was married with moans, groans and the steady sound of grinding teeth.
I’ll stop at 2 submissions! Thanks again!
THE BOOK OF MIRACLES
A novel by Green Ray
If I’m still alive when I finish telling this tale, it’ll be a miracle.
Line #1 – Until I was fourteen or so, I always wondered how it got decided that one sister was the pretty one while the other was stuck being labeled ‘smart’ or ‘responsible’. Because as far back as I could remember, Caris had always been adorable.
(YA)
Line #2 – I used to have a lot of perfect moments.
(YA)
Line #3 – Running to the nearest restroom and barfing: how I reacted when, upon meeting my older brother at the airport after he’d spent over a year studying abroad, he introduced me to his fiance.
(YA)
Hard urban rain turned the city into a mass of glistening edges and right angles.
No man deserves to die but more importantly, no man deserves to die without his head – for one, it’s unsightly, for two, it’s just wrong.
I knew her, of course, the first time she came to the house; one of the advantages of being dead is the ability to see beneath the surface.
Damned non-fiction — Dita bet if they’d chosen a maudlin novel off of Oprah’s list, as they had every month in the three years they’d been meeting, their discussion never would have turned to murder.
There was something decidedly eerie about being absolutely alone in the wilderness.
The fragile cup slipped from her fingers and hit the floor, shattering in a spray of ivory, rose and old gold.
I love writing contests!
“Redd looked down at the motionless person lying at his feet. The face was unrecognizable, swollen and bloodier than Redd’s hands.”
From my YA novel, The Willow and the Wrath.
OK, this one’s two sentences, but I liked it and spent far longer than I should have crafting it. So I’m gonna post it even if it’s disqualified.
Entry #3:
A good pickpocket always takes care to select the right mark. That I’m tied ankles-up to a ceiling joist while Dino Graziano’s goons work me over tells you exactly how good I am.
“What do you think he’s done now?” Jared asked in a low whisper.
From my middle grade WIP
Hats off to all of the entrants, and thanks for the fun contest, Nathan.
After three excellent lifetimes, Cullen Kearney, fourth son of King Eadbard Donal of Arin, was returning to the misery-inducing plane of existence he’d succeeded in avoiding for two hundred years – home.
From Fantasy Short – Prince of Arin
WIP
Dervla Tillman threw herself off the balcony of the penthouse while I was at work today and although her body was gone by the time I returned I could track her fall past the bougainvillea-decorated balconies of the building by the colours of the flowers scattered across the grass below.
#1: Death wormed its way into my dreams often enough, but a sandpaper-lined coffin with its own pay phone was new.
From, Deadworld, completed paranormal suspense novel.
#2: Wrath of God had been Mac Duquene’s first thought when ten days of torrential rain began to flood the streets of downtown San Antonio, but it was the limbless torso that turned and tumbled by him in the muddy, garbage-filled waters that had him thinking it might be the wrath of something else entirely.
From, The Bare Dirty, wip.
So I’ve been thinking of growing a backbone.
WIP: OUT OF FOCUS
“So I say again, it was no accident. They murdered my boy. We killed them for it. Justice is done.”
-From WIP “Omn’s Tears”
John said…
Lucifer stared into the blizzard cloud, rocked in the gale like a sleeper in thrall to the white roar of a dream.
1st line from my dark, literary fantasy novel, Lightbearer.
“They stood around the grave — watching as the polished mahogany casket disappeared into the ground.”
~From completed novel, Two Down, One to Go (Romantic suspense)
“No, no, no. Selma sprang out of bed, clad only in her underpants and fishnet stockings.”
~From Untitled WIP (Romantic suspense)
Neat contest. Thanks for the opportunity, Nathan.
I came awake after a thousand years entombed to the smell of blood, brimstone, pungent herbs, the blood of a probably-virgin sacrifice, and the monotonous droning of a power-hungry lich, or mage, or conjurer, or overlord – whatever the fuck this one was calling himself.
From a one of the (many) books I’ve started to write, this one tentatively titled: “A Magical Sword and an Evil Overlord.”
opI smoked a jazz cigarette that night, and sat in the old-time Proustian chair, that which propelled him “beyond space and time”; soon I was shooting racoons blue in the night, to the bark of dogs.
There, the three cats are moving around and around, re-positioning themselves, and striking provocative attitudes, all in nifty trinangulation.
Ever heard of a brothel that offers no sex, never has and never shall, they say. Nonsense, it’s like being in the rain and saying you won’t get wet.
From a futuristic WIP-
When they came, I wasn’t ready.
I so want to put in the next paragraph. NO! I resist!
After reading all these brilliant examples, an entry pro forma.
I was standing there naked when a dead man sauntered into my bathroom. Sauntered – not shambled. That was the second frightening thing.
From a WIP A Malignity of Ghosts, – urban fantasy.
She liked walking here among the little mysteries, even on this cold, still day at the turning of the year when the trees were bone-bare and the crystal-bound earth crunched under her boots like broken teeth.
From a short story Soul Stone .
From Come to Dust .
I hoped the legends were right – that this time, surely, he would stay dead.
Aw, sure, I’ll play:
Adam showed up on my doorstep two years after he killed my father.
He was the forty-second President of the United States, and he wanted what every hard and horny man wants; I was an intern, and I did what I had to do.
(Memoir)
A moody wet wind tore against the brick walls outside as he crept down the stairway, brushing a cobweb from his face.
If you think dying is hard, try coming back to life.
Okay, I’ll post a second one–but that’s all, I promise. Here it is:
My hooves tapped on the flagstones as I approached the castle’s open double doors.
Bartlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but what could you expect from a girl named after a pear.
=)
The truth of Day Biggs’ death came to him in the form of a balloon the color of an olive drab oil slick.
From “The 10th Gate” – WIP, YA Fantasy
WOO HOO Eric at 10:14 am and Tammie at 12:07. Need I say you’ll have my vote?
Here’s my entry:
I am lying on a padded table, soaked with sweat, shivering so violently it must appear that I’m having a seizure.
From an untitled short article.
This is a great exercise, Nathan, one that makes me realize I need to work on my opening lines!
I had a professor my junior year in college who told us that one day we’d each wake up and realize we hated our lives, and that this knowledge would set us free.
From my novel, THE GREATEST SHOW ON DIRT.
Their green eyes met across the bomb-shattered corpse of the zombie.
“Who—? What—oh God!” Susan bolted up in bed. “What are you doing here?”
“The bartender pointed me toward the back of the club after making eyes at me only a dead man could miss.”
“Something had bitten off the woman’s face, leaving a rack of upper teeth and serrated sinus cavity above the torn throat.”
“He awakened in the dark, sung into awareness by the soft and endless drip of water.”
I submit these merely for yucks and grins, not for any hope of ‘winning’.
Nathan, here’s the fist line from my historical novel, “The Eunuch’s Daughter”:
“He’s still watching you.”
Sue from CARWA
She sensed him before she smelled his unique essence, smelled him before she felt his light caress stroking her back, and knew him with her mind, heart, and especially, her body—he was her elven dream lover.
Apparently, and without knowing it, I had become an overnight expert in things rancid.
From a mystery WIP.
He dropped the lit match onto the petrol-soaked bodies of his Fuhrer and that woman crumpled at the bottom of the bomb crater, and as the fuel ignited he said calmly to himself, “Time for Plan B.”
I was fifteen years old and shoving a geometry book into my locker, located second from the left beside Mrs. Moroney’s homeroom, when I learned my father was a serial killer.
Mother often said, “Don’t swallow greased piglets,” but I never knew what that meant… until now.
If I had just slaughtered my pride and shoved its fat corpse in my mouth, I would have been all right.
An aura of grief radiated around the girl as plainly as a full moon on a cloudless night. Only the dullest of creatures could have missed it.
Hester squeezed her eyes shut as the pliers bit through the Tweeny Tag encircling her right ankle. She was free. But only for a single night.
From a middle grade dystopian fantasy.
I thought I knew who I was—who we were–before Uncle Jake drove his knife into the soldier’s back. I was wrong.
Smoley Hokes! Over 200 posts and counting. I don’t envy “the committee”.
Who knew her virginity could be worth that much?
From a WIP (biomedical thriller) – been playing around with the opening line. I’d love some input.
Three days before he turned twenty four Shakespeare Jones was given a choice.
-Megan
Hester squeezed her eyes shut as the pliers bit through the Tweeny Tag encircling her right ankle. She was free. But only for a single night.
From a middle grade dystopian fantasy.
Oh, sorry. I posted twice. For some reason I thought the anon version hadn’t appeared so I decided to be brave!
*Blush*
Time traveler—now that would be a kick-ass job, she thought.
From my sci-fi WIP “The Time Warriors.”
K.M. Sullivan
The sky was a sloppy Picasso.
“As a young man, there were girls before the many men.”
From my novel, a work in progress, almost done, yay!
The day I committed my first crime, I was wearing my Spider-Man tee-shirt.
Completed (realistic) mg novel titled The Many Crimes and Misadventures of a (Not-So) Super Hero
Love the blog, Nathan!
Cheryl
Digging graves is hell on a manicure.
From RED-HEADED STEPCHILD, an urban fantasy
Lorra, that line caught my attention. I’d want to read more.
Linnea, not sure but I think we’re the committee – maybe we submit our
top choices for finalists, and then we vote on those?
Guess we gotta wait on Nate.
Lots more good ones posted today. I’m updating my list.
Don pocketed a wedding ring that wasn’t his.
Among the lost, the call me Lonely.
Whoops, stupid mosquitoes buzzing about the keyboard distracted me. The war will be won eventually, Nate! Please forgive the typo.
“Among the lost, they call me Lonely.”
Entry #2,
“Well, that’s not good.”
From my short story.
I’ve seen at least a dozen that made me want to scream at the monitor, “What happens next?!” I don’t know how I’m going to choose. None of mine are even close to so many of these. 🙁
I’m a newbie to this group, but can’t resist adding a second entry after concluding like so many of you that two are “within reason.” Nathan, the contest is simply too fun to resist.
The shadow man lay dreaming, snoozing in the eternal haze that had become his home, when the smell of his universe suddenly changed.
(from my unpublished middle-grade fantasy novel)
Wow, is this page purple. And we’ve got enough killers and dead people and blood for a couple of Tarantino films….
I’m bored and lonely, which is not a good combination for a housewife.
I’m fascinated by this contest for so many reasons. First, of course I’m with Anonymous 9:09 in the whole beating of the monitor. If anything, maybe we can offer our beta reading services to each other? Second, how often do you get the chance to peek into the dark room that holds the competition? Sure, I can open a thousand books and read the first lines…but this is different. You guys are the ones submitting to Nathan. I’m dying to know where we all stand. Thanks again, Nathan! GREAT idea!
“Fran Filigree was a brand new ghost.”
“According to Foxtail, Arney has been dead for the last five years.”
From YA fantasy novel.
“So much death,” Jonus muttered pensively, “When’s breakfast?”
“Last week you met the Devil, and she was a real bitch.”
–from Deal, a WIP
“Lorraine looked up at the low slung gray bellies of the clouds and the blue silence which fell from them in the late afternoon light. “
First line from novel.
“Dosha’s mother was a notorious womanizer.”
— from Balancing Dosha, a WIP
“Dude, there’s no f***ing way I’m wearing spandex to my funeral.”
Until she looked through Rebecca’s front window, Tabitha had seen only three dead bodies in her life.
You’re a brave man, Nathan. I hope we don’t destroy you! 🙂
“He was the first naked man she had ever seen.”
I met Death in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
FWIW…
A quick count reveals that more than 1 in 3 of these entires involve a funeral, a dead person, or some kind of deadly violence.
“Jared Khan is a monster,” said Colonel Ezra Lynch in the most dramatic tone Dr. Victoria Brooks had ever heard from him. “He’s a completely amoral sociopath with no regard for human life or decency.”
From my as yet unpublished novel- THE WARLORD.
And the Colonel is describing the hero of the novel when he said that.
“Whoops, stupid mosquitoes buzzing about the keyboard distracted me. The war will be won eventually,”
Did you or the mosquito win, I’m wondering at three in the morning? (I’ve got my money on the skeeter.)
I’d definitely read more!
A work party…talk about an oxymoron, and that was before I had to labor and sweat in the still freakishly hot October heat like I was a member of a chain gain.
He’s trying to tune his guitar; I’m trying to tune him out.
The Ferris wheel at the Coffee County Cotton Festival lurched and froze with Kitty Dawkins in the gondola at its peak.
Jason felt quite sure he would need more than a Colorado map and a Snickers bar and to hide from the yellow eyes peering at him from over the edge of the cliff.
Middle Grade WIP
Thanks
“You’re damning my soul to hell,” Nora shouted as she wove her way through sailors, stacks of cargo and coiled rope.
Church Lady-
You are approaching the bounds of “within reason.” 😉
One more…
“It wasn’t until three days later, when I found myself unemployed and watching The Price is Right in my darkened apartment, that I even remembered my exchange with Marco.”
He half smiled at the sexy blond, watching her kiss the straw in her drink and draw the liquid up inside of her mouth. It was no challenge to snag them at the mention of being an agent; It was in the ‘literary’ that he lost them.
Lois’s youthful glow, natural beauty and perfect teeth had Maggie wanting to barf.
“There is true kindness in this world.”
“This grave’s empty, Sera.” Mikháil winked and stretched out his palm. “Pay up.”
Sometimes it doesn’t pay to follow the rules. Sometimes you just have to go with what’s in front of you. Unfortunately for Jay that meant hiding a known criminal because he knew she was innocent. Unfortunately, the reason he knew she was innocent was not some way that would hold up in court.
Sometimes it doesn’t pay to follow the rules. Sometimes you just have to go with what’s in front of you. For Jay that meant hiding a known criminal because he knew she was innocent. Unfortunately, the reason he knew she was innocent would never hold up in court. His life had never been easy before, now that he could read minds it had gotten a lot more complicated.
(Grr I hate that you can’t go through and correct mistakes)
I really needed to pee.
Lisa Adams, that is a first paragraph, not a first line (or even close to it.)
Brooklyn didn’t know very much about me, which was exactly what I needed in a friend.
(YA novel)
— CC
Eh, one more. (g)
The roar of the crowd echoed in my ears, just a tad quieter than the rushing pound of my heart as David’s hand slid beneath my sweater.
–By The Pale Moonlight, YA Paranormal
Polehampton Infant School is in mourning. Peggy Goodwin, the lollipop lady who served tirelessly for thirty years helping youngsters cross the road has been mown down and killed by a black Mercedes-Benz M-Class.
From the English rural martial arts action adventure “The Lollipop Lady”
Not much was left of the wren, only a few feathers and its skeleton, white bones arching from the grass like a tiny mausoleum.
from “Secret Knowledge”
YA contemporary fantasy novel
When I was a little girl, I thought every town had its own vampire.
“You do understand the agreement, correct?” asked a shadowed individual from the other side of a one way mirror.
I hate my name.
(That’s a contest entry, not an unsolicited self-criticism)
(Deleted and re-posted to classify WIP)
Just as I reached the massive stone gate, with my weapons ready and my health at maximum strength, the doorbell rang.
-YA WIP “Q”
When I was alive, I was the bad twin.
The door to Chad Jones’s first-floor apartment crashed open. The hot, humid Houston air swept into the room. Breaking the kiss he’d been enjoying, he pushed himself off his bride and turned. “What–?”
To Josephine Damian – I am laughing at your remake of my opening sentence, because of the irony. I have a Facebook Group set up for this book – LOL! If anyone is interested in joining, to voice their opinions on this work-in-progress, or read excerpts, the group is at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4846466138
Thanks!
Evie Parker’s mouse pointer stopped and her heart skipped a beat when her
eyes read the e-mail subject from Real Daddy, My Son.
Another WIP’s 1st line.
June 11, 1975 was the day the world ate Abbott.
After years of dreaming, of clipping pictures of castles and people dressed in tweed from magazines, Isabel had finally come home.
Marti: A gal from my crit group asked my opinion of her short story, and I was less than enthusiastic about it, to say the least. So she sent me a nasty email, poo-pooing my opinion! I wish Miss Snark was around to shoot this gal with the proverbial clue gun.
Just couldn’t resist when I saw your line.
I’m not on facebook (yet) so wasn’t able to view your group. But I think being open to constructive crits is a sign of a writer capable of improvement, which is more than I can say about the nit wits in my group.
John Levitt: Well, I did. When I worked at the MEO, I came to think of the corpses as “customers.” After a while, the coroner called them that too!
Lisa Adams: Until they create an edit feature, I just delete my post if it has mistakes, and then post another corrected one. No need to leave double posts.
Anonymous – “Secret Knowledge” – I’m itching to edit. How about “cathedral” instead of “mausoleum” (as if I haven’t already gotten my head bitten off enough times this week for making editorial suggestions)? Still a good line, though.
Entry #2- (first entry 9/10 12:03 p.m)
“Hoping for some shady fun in the alleyways (my fear of the constables is slight) I sneaked through the house with a practiced step, when I saw a stranger slouching past the window in the fleshy reflection of the first floor clock.”
-“The Grand Panjandrum Comes to Town”
What could be more embarrassing
than reading about the Blackmeares?
Being a Blackmeare!
From YA Novel – ROCK-N-ROLL, BABY!
None of this would have happened if “Gullibility” had been at the top of my “Character Faults To Be Addressed” list.
-R.C.
Madison James couldn’t breathe; she was standing in a room full of the most powerful people in Manhattan, and she was choking on the Chanel-scented air.
From my current WIP, Tasting Fear, romantic suspense
Dear God: Please let it be Wednesday afternoon already.
[big G]
Seriously, though:
When the White Buffalo chimera stepped through the Northern Gate, I knew the last veil had dropped.
OK, as long as it’s fine to have two entries:
God, he was such a fucking asshole.
(first line of a recently completed novella, undergoing revision)
Tinged with the salty essence of the Gulf of Mexico, the sultry June air was rich with the fragrance of magnolia blossoms and Confederate jasmine. It was reminiscent of a carnal blend of sweat and perfume.
Here is a second entry. Thanks for hosting this fun contest!
Their queens traditionally took foreign lovers.
Sue L
The following story is not true; all characters, events, and settings are stuff I made up, and the music is the only part that’s real.
“Allowed inside through a few opened windows, a slight summer breeze blew through the sinuous curtains of a room lit by the faintest glow of night.”
From “Sapphire Depths”, my almost-completed YA WIP.
And for my second and final entry:
There was more to the Donner Trail Guest Ranch than large, vacant rooms full of revenants; it held secrets that threatened to tear the family apart forever.
My beloved friend, even in death I believe you deserve to know the truth.
From fantasy realism WIP “Magic Magnet”.
Sorry Nathan, I got carried away. Maybe keep the first two and discard the rest? Whatever works, but I’ll stop.
Thanks for a great contest!
Church Lady-
No worries, you’re entered, just wanted to demarcate some sort of vague barrier.
She’d survived her parent’s death, a fire, a bout with influenza and Lady Buckley’s chastising tongue; surely she could handle the likes of one small boy.
Queen of the empire, Babylon spreads her royal robes across the great Euphrates, her foundations laid in the bodies of men and women stolen from afar and indifferent to the gust of rebellion lifting her gilt-edged skirts.
from my historical WIP
The ocean breeze revived my dull spirit,as I lingered on the beach lost to an old freighter on the horizon going slowly into nothingness-my mind went with it as my heart blended with the rhythm of the distant drums.
2nd Entry
Thanks Everyone !!
Helen/email:he.art@mac.com
Kitties and babies could make me do the dumbest things, I thought as I scrambled through thigh-high grass, home to centipedes, spiders and vicious mongooses.
— from my YA novel.
I thought I submitted one yesterday, but it hasn’t come up so I’m trying again.
From WIP, adult mainstream:
I was seven before I realized that my little sister Allie was perfect. In retrospect, I don’t know why it took me so long.
Thanks, Mr. Bransford
Mine sucks, but what the heck:
Kick, jab, shuffle, kick, lunge, jab.
Regular folks who worked regular jobs were in bed at 1:30 am, but not Jonathon Agee.
#2
“Atlantis was the most dangerous civilization the world would ever see.”
From the prologue of my WIP “Sapphire Depths”.
Why does everything (and everyone) turn so horrifyingly gross and disgustingly real and unfortunately truthful, when you turn thirteen?
MBS
The marriage was over a year ago; now all that’s left between Frank and me is the charade–we keep it up because that’s the way we were raised, and God forbid anyone get divorced in this town.
(WIP, Christian chick lit)
“Despite what you may have heard about the incomparable agony of labor and delivery, HAVING kids is easier than RAISING them.”
From my satirical nonfiction WIP titled 987 REASONS TO NOT HAVE KIDS
(I don’t know how to italicize with HTML tags, so that’s what the CAPS are for. Sorry!)
I couldn’t believe everyone was acting like it was normal to have a funeral for someone that wasn’t dead.
From my YA WIP Death and Dating.
Thanks for the contest!
1st line of Chap. 1. The one before is from my prologue.
For a child, one’s bedroom is considered their kingdom; all that lies outside is limitless. As one grows older, the room becomes their prison and a safehold for magic to keep the reality out; the heart of a child has a strong fear of reality whispering that fantasy is nonexistant.
One? Only one vote? I have three that I LOVE.
*sniff*
You are an evil, evil man, Mr N.
Wow, awesome of you to do this. I’ll play, what the heck. From YA WIP Wingless:
Dear Syri,
If you could come into the city on December the 12th, I can perform the amputation that afternoon.
Wow, this is very interesting. Thanks, Nathan.
I’ll enter a couple. These are both YA–
“I hate Albert Schweitzer,” Ten said.
And entry number two:
It was the night before Halloween and the odds were good that I might throw up.
As far as Alex could see, nothing was wrong with the fixer-upper except for the corpse decomposing on the kitchen floor.
adult mystery
People get out of my way, yet I’m invisible–being fat is my greatest power.
YA untitled WIP
The fan whirred steady. Not that it mattered; it was still too hot to sleep.
From SWAMP SPELLS: MG Contemporary Fantasy
Kelsey Johnson Defatte
My second entry:
Did you ever notice, with all the birds in the sky, that you hardly ever see a dead one?
from my short story, Jay the Bird
Becky Blue Brantley sat solidly on the worn sofa and wriggled her rump occasionally, where a spring hidden deep inside the sofa gave silent testimony to the many and varied rumps that had previously occupied the spot where Becky Blue now sat morning her first born son.
From a short story
Okay, so moving sucked, but it was more than just clichéd nervousness; I was afraid. And not only for me.
From BLACK ROSE SCORNED: YA, Contemporary Fantasy
Kelsey Johnson Defatte
rkdefatte at charter dot net
This isn’t an entry, but a question—
Granted I don’t read a lot of YA (maybe none) but it seems that barfing/throwing up is a popular theme. Is that because this is something teens do a lot or like to talk about doing?
Also, when did literature get so morbid? I’ve never seen so many dead people! Actually, I’ve never seen ANY dead people. :o)
Everyone else is doing it so it must be fun…here’s my entry:
There is nothing like the gut-hollowing experience of watching someone die, especially when you know it’s coming.
Completed YA novel
Too many moles to whack and not enough hammers.
The mechanical voice droned on, but Sarai didn’t listen to the lesson about Coalition PAX, a recruited peacekeeping force for all sentience — she’d flunked the mid-tern on System History already, and the “A” in Full Serve Restaurant Management and the B+ in Interplanetary Trading Law more than covered the red mark to her GPA.
YA, Sci-fi WIP – PROFIT
Honesty is rarely the best policy in high school, especially when you have something to hide.
Yowza– Huh? In addition to mine, the only other opening line in this impressively long list that mentions the technicolor yawn isn’t marked as YA.
I wonder what you’re thinking of?
It was a powerful moon, hanging red and heavy in the sky. A moon that boded well for lovers, and poorly for lone travelers.
It was a powerful moon, hanging heavily red in the sky. That moon boded well for lovers and poorly for lone travelers.
I thought this was a FIRST line contest, not first paragraph contest.
There is no escaping my voice in your mind.
Fiction.
Sometimes it was a pain in the ass to see ghosts.
In the interest of giving Bransford-san here the most comments he’s ever seen on any one post, might as well…
Naomi was sitting on the coffee table again.
The healer pulled back the cowl of his white robes, his dark brown face illuminated by the candles burning on the table against the far wall. “She has worsened,” he said and turned back to the woman lying in the bed before him.
– from a fantasy novel
The ship was burning.
The ship was burning and the red glow of her death was no more than an ember lost on the storm-lashed Atlantic, the heavy smell of burning wood and tar driven far before her in a plume of smoke like the tail of a black horse.
My first line of my soon-to-be-named WIP MG:
Deep down below earth’s surface, surrounded by pools of boiling lava and flying sparks there was something.
And na na na I’m putting another few:
The sun crept across the brilliant blue sky, accenting it with shades of pink and yellow. from an MG in the works called The Woodland Elf
Music wafted dreamily toward the heavens that night, and the air was warm as it spun round and round in the pitch black sky. The stars were twinkling frantically, calling and calling to the moon. :From A Story of A Starry Sky that is also in the works
And, from a short story:
As a shoe, there isn’t really much action for you.
They are all fiction. 🙂
Name says it all.
Wow, some of y’all really need to cool it with the adverbs, adjectives, and purple prose.
Try for clarity.
Great contest!
Third and last….
It was only foreskin — a sheath of cells and blood.
From “Counterpoint”
The other entries have sources, too…promise!
She watched her evidence disappear, bite by bite, down the gullets of small sharks.
There was no mistake, my hair was a hideous shade of neon carrot, even though the color on the box said cauldron black.
From my other YA WIP, Twisted Summer.
Thanks again for the fun contest!
People call me Dizzy Lizzie, and I admit they have a point.
– middle grade novel
Here’s my entry:
_It’s just wrong,_ Melissa thought.
WIP, mg novel
At sixty-two, Aliana was much too young to be a member of the king’s council.
dot: there are wayyyy too many entries for me to go back through and count the barf. Sorry. :o)
But I did think I saw at least 3.
It’s time to tell her it’s over between us, Wolfgang, the ex-neo-Nazi-turned-alfalfa farmer, thought as, in the ethereal glow of the Californium-251-fueled reactor, he embraced Rhoda, svelte heiress to the Silverstein fortune, who ran her tongue over his broad, muscular chest, reaching down with one long-fingered hand to stroke his hard, rigid piece that he always kept strapped in the leather holster at his side because you never knew when or where the Mafia would skank, especially now since the drought meant the bottom had fallen out of the timothy market on earth and demand for low-gee alfalfa like the kind he was raising on his lunar plantation, Tara, had sent the price of alfalfa soaring higher than an exploding shuttle and you never could trust those sons-of-bitches wise guys anyway even in the best of times, and besides, there was always that incident with Hikaru — where had the blood come from? — to be considered, though he never liked to think about it too long because it always gave him one of those terrible headaches that felt like someone clamping a vise around his head, and then the visions would begin — those prescient nightmares that had foretold the deaths of several of his closest friends (like Tex, the Oklahoma cowboy who’d bit the dust after bein’ bucked off o’ th’ meanest, loco-ist bronc this side o’ th’ Pecos; McDuff, the shy brewer who had choked to death playing “Greensleeves” on his beloved pipes; Alfonso, the bullfighter and international drugrunner who had been devoured by that great white while diving off the coast of Australia; and Lucky Pierre, the New Caledonian rebel leader whose head had been — but no, he wouldn’t let himself think about them), and Wolfgang was afraid that the next time he dreamed, he would dream of Rhoda, and he couldn’t bear to see her dead and lifeless body laid beneath the cold, cold earth of the moon.
Not from a cross-genre WIP.
I saw a lot of great entries down the list, this has been a fun little contest just for the great reads.
Nathan, I just have to ask, is it points off for paragraghs instead of first lines or really long run on sentences? With all these entries, I started skipping ones with multiple commas after a while unless the first few words really pulled me in…
Maybe I’d just make a terrible agent.
My most vivid childhood memory is of Jane Mary mother on her knees.
“I hate elves,” spat the principal’s voice from behind the door that had slipped a hairbreadth open with a gust of skunk-reeking wind.
YA fntasy
“It has been mine for two months, and still this name confounds me: Giuseppina. Giuseppina Guillaume.”
Julianne
The Five Horseman of the Apocalypse road into her classroom,
late as usual.
This one’s sold, due out next summer, Calico Canyon.
I have to add here, this is fun to read.
I start my book with a resume, so:
Objective: To gain a fabulous new internship where I don’t have to mess with any shady dealings, hard-to-resist male secretaries, or guys who wear sunglasses indoors.
It’s from my YA , THE INTERN. 🙂
Mandy
#3: If only I had known.
#4: Imagine my surprise when I woke to find my dreamcatcher had actually caught something.
Nathan, thanks for putting on such a rockin’ contest. ::hands you Visine bottle::
Good luck to everyone – so many of your first lines had me begging for more.
The day the demon showed up, it was the first unexpected thing to happen to Angel Azrael in a thousand years; he was so shocked he stopped what he was doing, his hand half way out of the dead woman’s chest, the soul he’d come to collect pulsing gently in his fist.
From my WIP, Fallen Angels, Inc.
If it’s bad luck for a black cat to cross your path, Mrs. Forrester ought to be dead by now!
Aunt Medina is dying again, this will be her third time and we are sick with waiting.
– from a novel in progress ‘The hollow chapel’
The greatest adventure in life is death, just as the climax of a story is the most exhilarating and gratifying, it is in our final hours that the truth of our existence is told in its entirety.
When the UAV codenamed Blackjack first cracked the air above the Lady Garian, only two people could have foreseen the slaughter that followed: one was busy running a dungeon in Warlock Realms, the other out buying cake.
The poppies had subtly scented the hot dry air, but it was the flowering saffron from the next field that wafted my nostrils with bitterness; she was sitting in the flowered waves of blue poppy, in the shade of a giant garish rosary, gazing in intelligent smiled fixity at the steaming black bull before her.
Sometimes, music dreamt in me of long-ago Spanish times, broken-hearted loss times…of the betrayal of self, of the fear of never getting, of my stunned and amazed regret when I drove through Paris a second time (23 months later) and felt and understood fully that I would never be there again, that what I had promised to myself now and forever was lost and would hitherto be only dreamt of in the rest of my life.
I could have had Paris, but didn’t even try.
From a simple peanut butter sandwich served lovingly by Horn & Hardart, to the wondrous, complex trail of Tad’s T-Bone Cafeteria, only a traveling Burger Barn would have the chutzpah to assault the native tastes of Mr. New Yorker, Moe Blumenthal.
(Opening line from query in progress)
Picture a night in Andalucia, let us say in August; you sit at midnight in a small orange grove in the zocalo, drinking red wine, Ciento-tres brandy, smoking ‘chocolat’ in a little cigarette you share with a gitano who looks like the incarnation of some god of the Hindoos…hashish you bought from a fat old woman who lived in a crumbling Franco-era tenement on the poor side of town, who drew the little package slowly from between her breasts…you start off talking the foreign policies of mighty nations, then your gaze wanders from your friend’s glassy eye up to stars stuck sharply into the black, velvet night…a moon swollen with light limns everything around you…in the near distance prowl shades employed by the Guardia Civil, remnants of Franco’s police state, their blackly lacquered caps lit occasionally by cast cerulean blue shimmering lazily from ornate wrought-iron gas street lanterns…blue demons, busters of revery!
Bah, the dead totally suck at PM.
“Three more Fire Hornets biting our tail, Sir.”
“Your tea’s like ‘miew niew’ (cat’s wee),” Mrs Wang cackled.
After slaving three years at the blood bank, I’d learned to get the hell out of the building before the night shift rolled in and be well away from the north side of Memphis before dark.
Urban Fantasy WIP, Blue Suede Demons
“In the prison under the castle of Allaze, where the greatest criminals in Mellinor spent the remainder of their lives naming rocks to stave off madness, Eli Monpress was trying to wake up a door.”
First line of a fantasy I’m _almost_ done with…
Mysteries had always confused Ms. Agnes Bowen.
MBS
My husband and I were married, so it wasn’t a sin.
From “Peripheral Vision,” a completed short story.
So, you’re saying I should have killed him instead?
Dead Ringer
A Cozy Mystery
Everyone who worked at Rappahannock Regional Hospital knew what killed Guillermo Zerman; what they couldn’t understand was how or why it happened.
#1 My Momma, God love her, thought of me as Jesus incarnate and I was gonna milk that for all it was worth. “Crazy for You” WIP MG
#2 She drew a breath and once more, enjoyed being a human until she remembered the trappings and the lure of their trivial five senses. “Soul Shepherd” WIP YA
#3 Iona had been young when the stones had last spoke. “Sibylline Prophecies” WIP YA
Thanks for this opportunity Nathan!
I don’t dislike my grandmother, she just talks entirely too much for a dead woman and really, it is getting harder and harder to explain to Gordie why things keep randomly flying around my room.
I hate when I get gum on my shoes; but not as bad as when I get poop on my shoes!
MG WIP ~ “One of Those Days!”
Addy’s slender fingers grasped for the closest sturdy thing they could find, the gnarled trunk of a silver maple. Trying to focus, she closed her eyes in an attempt to still their rapid, involuntary movement. The burning would pass in a moment, as it always did, but she forced her lids open again to see if he was still there; if he’d been there at all in the first place.
“Consider this: when your mother pimps you out at age sixteen to fat, white, railway workers who sweat out their foetid imaginings on your young body, and afterwards whisper to you of their foul children and kaffir-hating wives before kissing you goodbye and promising to be back, then the first nineteen-year-old john she brings you will seem like a sweet, sweet prince.”
From novel-in-progress.
I stood partially shadowed behind a concrete pillar, feeling like a villain on a bad television program.
From a WIP.
It is said that a man’s fate is held in the hands of three sisters.
“Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t get my dog to stop fetching the snake.” She plopped into the only empty chair, across from me. I liked the view.
Some people make lemonade out of life’s lemons but I prefer lemon pastry creme.
It was awesome, more beautiful than I could have believed. Especially for something that was going to kill me.
I was sun bathing my fat rolls, working on a quiz in Cosmopolitan magazine, listing my pitiful life experiences when the tsunami came.
Ninety feet below the surface of the Caribbean, Mercy Bonner clutched the chubby brown hand of a man whose name she couldn’t remember and fought the panic screeching in her brain.
“Pain, it has been said, is a powerful motivator, Mr. Greene,” the pockmarked man in the plastic raincoat said as he sharpened the skinning knife, “Please be motivated soon, Mr. Greene; it is nachos night and I hate to be late.”
Max gazed up at the luminosity of the moon through the telescope.
“I see dead people.”
From: Comments in the Blogosphere
Everyone thought I hated Santa Claus, but I swear I never did. It’s impossible to hate a big happy guy that brings you stuff, even when you know the truth about him.
Finished MG Novel–“The Truth About Santa Claus”
Pick me, pick me!! (Is shameless begging okay?)
Nathan, you are truly a brave, generous, and crazy man. Help or no help, this is a lot to take on. I almost hate to add to the deluge … but here are my two entries.
#1 The first time Grace McEwen stood outside a closed door and listened to her mother squeal and sigh with pleasure she was six. Thirty-one years later, the sounds were just as awkward.
From my WIP, a women’s fiction novel titled, IF ONLY HE KNEW.
#2 I took one look at her and knew she would cost one of the guys their marriage — I just didn’t know that guy would be me.
From my short story titled PLUNDERED BOOTY, which I am in the process of expanding to novel length.
“Carol pushed her way past the protesters lining the walkway to the Dragon Rehabilitation Center.”
(This is for a short story, in case that invalidates my entry.)
entry #2
On his last birthday, Danny Davis turned twelve.
Okay #3 and this is it for me.
Dang hard to stay away from here.
“Always wear clean underwear; you never know when you are going to be in an accident.” Mother’s wisdom scuttled through my head, God, why didn’t I wear clean underwear?
Out of Nowhere ~ WIP YA
“When your only parent is compulsive and obsessive, you learn to plan ahead, you learn to look for spots.”
from THE NIGHT SANTA DIED
MG WIP
By AC
“This is it – this is the exact spot where William was murdered by his scheming wife.”
from romantic suspense WIP Haunting at Forsyth Manor
The clang of the work-bells forced its way into Mario’s consciousness. A sliver of light pushed through his eyelids, and he pried them open.
Morning again. Monday morning. The old joke was anything but funny. On Planet Monday, every day was the same.
I can smell the butchered meat on his skin. Sloth, I think.
From my current novel in progress. My last attemtp to post failed, so if this is a duplicate – sorry. Sandra Gail
From my WIP:
The day was proving to be the worst first-day-of-work in the history of the world, definitely worthy of Guinness book status … and it had started out with so much potential, too.
I thought it was a game, a silly game, but when the graphologist started analyzing the brief sample, “my” sample, Gwen nearly fell off her chair.
Busted – WIP
I sit in the corner where the two buildings meet and watch the dust swirl the trash around. It swirls for minutes, and I think how boring it must be to be trash in a city, so I put my finger in the middle of the tornado and everything stops.
From “According to Luke,” MG WIP
“Did you ever have one of those moments–one of those transparent, crystal clear moments– when your life is suspended like a dewdrop on the spider-web of space and time?” my father asked me as we walked through the dark forest.
“Where God is the spider?” I replied.
YA suspense
Other witches have ravens, wolves, even panthers as familiars- I have a goldfinch.
Her tortured screams haunted the ICU. When she’d been discovered in the cave they’d found nothing to identify her. Jane Doe remained a mystery of pain and torture.
WIP Angel of Death.
Devon had barely been able to sleep all night, waking in fits and starts, anxious about the coming day and the Proving.
— From The Weaver of Atreia YA novel
The boy hung only by his fist, clenched tight and crammed into a narrow crevice of rock, only a thin leather cuff preventing the jagged stone from sawing into his flesh.
— From The Fists of Capoda YA novel
On Saturday, the seventh of July, Katie Chloe McDaniels broke the rules. She drew an extra box.
— From The Luck Thief MG novel
Submitted respectfully.
“He looked dead, but Grace Hackett had fantasized her husband’s death so many times she couldn’t trust her eyes.”
—-From East of Jesus, the women’s lit/dark humor novel I’m currently shopping
“I almost missed my kidnapping even though I’d marked it on my calendar.”
—-From Out of Orderville, my current WIP (also women’s lit)
That summer, the arsonist struck every home on the block but ours.
At 4:14 during Billy’s tenth birthday party, his little sister Evie puked on his cake.
“Since freshman year, I’ve been in a prank war with Jess Hill, and it won’t end until one of us get’s caught.”
From my YA novel, GETTING CAUGHT
Amanda Hubbard
I stared at the nine men of my dreams.
(deleted original and re-posted because it looked like dialogue and it isn’t.)
“Holy shit, give this man an Oscar already!”
Taken from “The NathanBransford Files”
Time ran backwards as the vampire’s fangs cut through the carotid artery of the evil mutant albino. A sliver of red ran up the chin of the pasty face as the creature of white transformed into a demon of the night. The mutant looked up triumphantly at the diminishing stars, and with a horrific screech shouted “It is done!”.
AWP
Now we’re both happy, except me.
William Campbell looked into the blank, round eye of the squirming fish and retched, gagging on the mixture of thick bile and disgust that rose into his throat.
–from a novel, ages 12 and up.
Some good ones coming in here as the contest winds down.
Bloggers first lines vs. myspacers first lines? Bloggers rock!
I had two bodies growing up: one was light and soft and melodramatic, the other was hot and juicy and delicious. They were called Love and Sex, and both were named Jean.
– (fiction, of course!)
It wasn’t what I expected, although I had not given the being-dead part much thought anyway.
Dredging other first lines from stuff I’m working on:
First line of book 1 of a fantasy series:
“The nights are endless in this constant war.”
First line of book 2 of the same series:
“I stand on the pinnacle of a world unmade.”
First line of a sci-fi short story:
“He was the first out the door, boots touching dirt in the midst of a pristine park full of marble fountains.”
And from (yet another) fantasy novel I started:
“The sky was black with flies, their buzz like the sound of hell pouring into reality through the ten-thousand rifts torn in the bodies that littered the field.”
Amazing how many of the things I’ve written have a boring first line that only 5 out of about 25 have one even remotely worth posting.
Not an entry: I said it once and I’ll say it again: Lots of puking going on, people!
Timmy couldn’t feel the grasshopper; only one very sharp tooth.
I was twenty-six when I died.
OR
I was not afraid to die, having already done it once.
(First lines from two different versions of my memoir “Dying to Live”)
Agnes Orthelia Hornbach stood with her hand on the serpent-shaped door handle as if she were about to enter another world. In a sense, she was.
@Yowza:
I agree. Just puking and dead people. And it’s just a matter of time before someone combines the two.
They came from the east, devastating the crops and leaving tiaras and cloak-pins in their wake.
“I’ve inherited a man?”
The first line of my historical romance wip– “The Bondage Keeper”– Pat O’Brien
nwdowDina opened her eyes just in time to see something leap from her bed and swoosh out her window.
From a fantasy WIP – “TWO KIDS, TWO FAIRIES AND A TROLL”
In the hot, windless summer of 1976, Vietnam was over, disco was taking its first awkward baby-steps and trying to do the hustle. And I, amid the shirtless hippies celebrating the bicentennial, gave my dad his walking papers.
boommm.
The shock wave rocks the night sky, buffeting the slate Wall that encircles Browbeat village like a black ring as I plunge arrow-straight into the frozen fens beyond it, 9.43 minutes ahead of Boola’s unhinged mind, which falls here from Home Office too, by accident.
–from a just completed satirical novel
Entry #2
He had to get to the liquor store and get stocked up, what with the End of The World and all.
(Sorry…I couldn’t resist after reading Good Girl Lit…)
Dylan pinched himself; he wanted to run but this time, he was playing for keeps!
From a YA fantasy WIP – “ONCE IN A BLUE MOON”
The doctor is dressed in a white coat. An empty paper cup that once contained coffee is sitting on a desk that is covered with papers.
The small town of Verrieres may be regarded as one of the most attractive in the Franche-Comte.
Work-In-Progress
Sometimes I lie perfectly still and pretend I am dead.
–From YA WIP
Ok, since everyone and his uncle posts entire paragraphs, here’s one of mine as well.
Swords clashed with a vibrating bang. Ciaran jerked awake. A fight in the peristyle yard? In near darkness, he jumped out of the bed, belted his tunica and groped for the sword on the chest beside the bedstead. The tiled floor felt cold under his bare feet but Ciaran did not waste time to lace the sandals. He snatched a shield from the wall and opened the door to the inner yard of the villa, scanning the scene illuminated by some hanging lamps.
THE CHARIOTEER, historical fiction
Blood and fire, gold and steel and poetry, a river’s voice in the silence of the night, and the shining strings of a harp – all these and more I have known in my time.
from my novel “Storyteller”
Entry #1
Wings outstretched and pumping with a graceful efficiency, he soared above the trees savoring the small taste of freedom. A tremor of delight coursed through him as the unnatural quiet below deepened into deadly silence.
Entry #2
His heart slamming into his throat, Alexander Stiles swore viciously as the Dodge Neon suddenly veered into his lane without even a blinker to warn him, and their bumpers puckered up to kiss.
After I ate Ed and took over as VP of Sales, Charlie installed a shark cage in his office for our weekly one-on-one’s.
“Whoa.”
From the memoir: You Don’t Need Talent To Act Like Me
I’ve always wanted to use this opening line, but I’ve never found the chance to.
“Everything I write here will be either a truth or a lie: it’s impossible for someone like me to write this all down without any…exaggerations, but I swear I’ll try my best to be honest.
For the most part.”
“The very worst thing about being dead was the inability to indulge in life’s sweetest things.”
From completed paranormal YA, Possession
Daemyn Herald’s nightmare stalked him in slumber, just as it did his waking life.
From my book fiction fantasy book. “The Seer’s Legacy”
Can I state that for the two entries that used “Carol” and “Jean” as main character names…
… these are REALLY old-fashioned names and you might do well to change them to something more contemporary.
I know this because my name is “Carol Jean.”
Jackie’s day began as it did for all of us, with an orderly and a hypodermic.
untitled WIP
oh, oh I love first line contests!This is from my chick lit wip:
It’s on account of the jellyfish that I ended up in Siberia.
The summer before I turned sixteen, an exceptionally strong gust of wind rose up from the barren deserts of California and tumbled my smiling-on-the-outside, screwed-up-on-the-inside family (I use the word lightly) clear to Podunk, USA.
from YA manuscript WINDCHIMES
She entered the party looking more prisoner than guest of honor.
Something’s broken.
Carol Jean,
Maybe the characters are old? Or old-fashioned?
:o)
My mother says I am unique, a bright light, but won’t ever explain why, and though I want to believe her… kids at school say different… and I think I am more of a small light – but a small light in a dark room.
Re super soaker’s : “…puking and dead people…it’s just a matter of time before someone combines the two.”
LOL That’s a first line worthy of a book.
“The most important thing I learned from the society was how to betray the people who loved and trusted me.”
— from a novel
Harry
‘I’d say that’s a bloody no-no Mrs.V’
Anon 3:30 said
Re super soaker’s : “…puking and dead people…it’s just a matter of time before someone combines the two.”
Funny, in my trunk novel I did just that.
Darling, at some point in every girl’s life Mother Nature will need at least a little assistance from Father Botox
“STOP THE MAAAAD-NEEEESS!!”
From: The Last Contest: My Descent into the Bowels of the Worst Wednesday Night of My Life
by N. Bransford
She had not been pretty. Frizzy, carroty hair had surrounded ordinary features and unbecoming freckles, but at least she’d had a face.
My first thought as I attended my own funeral: “Dude, this could have been cooler.”
From my Vampire YA WIP.
Leslie didn’t want to leave her dream; the nightmares came while she was awake.
The day Joe Fane got out of prison, the warden gave him forty dollars gate money, a handshake, and a bus ticket back to Houston; Joe already knew he’d be jumping parole.
From Texas Tango, a crime novel.
Watching the company CEO scramble out of the toilet, pants down around his knees, is not a sight I want to see again in this life time.
Grown man that he now is, Rodney’s primary locus remains firmly fixed in the mundane, notwithstanding the fact, at age nine, a dozen leprechauns abducted him while he bicycled to widow Platt’s house for his weekly cello lesson, although what actually went on there between him and widow Platt was much more than musical and the authorities were long suspicious of it, even though they could charge the widow with nothing since Rodney refused to talk about those sessions being the high IQ genius he was, having comprehensively analyzed all the future ramifications of implicating his beloved cello teacher and then deciding against it, instead becoming determined to save her the humiliation of going to the slammer for showing him all those elastic gymnastic contortions, because, as an orphan, and an unwilling ward of the Leprechaun Underground, he was projecting all his neediness onto her, anyway, to the point he truly believed he loved her, when it was obvious to even the most brilliant mental health professional who studied his case in latter years, including me, that his belief was little more than sick delusion, with widow Platt, the leprechauns and whomever else having selfishly preyed upon his naivete, the poor bastard.
** novel-in-progress
From: Murder Can Be Fun
Veronica Hayden woke up with a smile on her face, and a loaded gun under her pillow.
Nadine opened the book and read the first sentence aloud, “To the man or woman reading this I must caution you, the following sentence will change your life in a profound way.”
I should have known. I should have known the minute I went to get my favorite black tee and found it not in the drawer, but curled up in a crusty ball in the back of my closet, caked with two-week-old nuked syrup that had shot out of the bottle, bounced off my waffle, and splattered me like sweet Vermont paintball.
YA
Joe exited the Jetway and thumbed the wedding band around his finger as his eyes bounced among the waiting faces.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd TIME.
Thank you for everyone who entered! Finalists will be announced in the morning.
In a world gone digital new kicks are hard to find, so the human race decided it’s easier to download their personalities into new bodies and do away with flesh and blood that broke and deformed so quickly.
-Gigabyte Gnome
Holy William Faulkner, Phoenix! That’s one heck of a long first line! Wow.
I knew my prom date was going to be President one day.
Every single hand written version of my grandfathers memoirs started with one phrase: My wife is illiterate.
The storm danced around the distant hilltops flashing yellow lightning and purring thunder.
Hey, Paperback Writer: Glad you noted it is just one sentence :o)
A fairly technically correct sentence, too. No blatant comma splices. Not a run on. I was careful to see that it met Nathan’s very strict (ha!) guidelines.
I really wrote it to poke a bit of fun here. People were getting so serious and were so concerned about following the rules and making sure we knew what genre they were writing in case we missed it in their 5-10 words. That’s why mine’s a completely inane mix of stereotypes and genres that hang together only out of sheer perseverance. Tongue was planted firmly in cheek, I promise.
Best of luck to those being shortlisted tonight! It’s been a fun read!
“She had the lips that Satan dreamed of in his long fall to Hell.” (from “Thief of Eyes”)
“I took my first drink two years ago. My name is Sarah Gordon, I’m sixteen and I’m an alcoholic.”
Bob the Builder died because he lived in the wrong house.
Nathan wept.
“Through my car’s window I see the giant billboard showing a military boot squashing a worm with my face on it. I am afraid of los barbudos, the bearded ones.”
From my middle grade novel “Island of my heart”
When I was yet too young to have a name my mother wrapped me in a smouldering apron and cast me out through the window of our seventh floor flat. I fell through a long blue sky and hit the grassed embankment beside the coffee shop umbrellas and bounced unharmed to a rest by play park railings.
Or so I am led to believe.