UPDATE: TIME’S UP!! THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED
After the deluge I mean success of the Stupendously Ultimate First Line Challenge, and after seeing so many wonderful first lines, I couldn’t help but wonder — what came next??
Well. Now’s your chance to fire off more than just a sentence. This week’s contest is THE LARGELY INDISPENSABLE FIRST PARAGRAPH CHALLENGE!! (aka the sensation that’s sweeping the nation) Who can write the best opening to a book EVER?
The guidelines (subject to change upon a whim):
1) All may participate. First paragraphs can be from your work in progress or one you made up solely for the purposes of the challenge. Your choice. Please limit yourself to three (3) entries.
2) Leave your first paragraph in the comments section. Paragraphs stretching on and on into infinity will be judged, well, not necessarily with impunity but definitely with hearty skepticism.
3) Entries may be made between now and Wednesday evening Pacific time. On Thursday nominees will be announced and voting will commence, and the winner will be announced on Monday.
4) After the fantastically generous help of Anne Dayton in the SUFLC, I’ve enlisted the other half of Good Girl Lit, May Vanderbilt, to help me judge this week’s contest. (Because Good Girls make good judges.)
5) Spreading the word about the challenge by means of the Internet is encouraged. Let’s make this one the most largely indispensible ever. 700 entries? 10,000? A BILLION? Bring it!! I’m ready.
6) Oh yes, and the prizes. The winner will receive a partial mansucript critique from yours truly and a copy of one of my client’s books (your choice!). Runners-up will win, as always, my everlasting admiration and the satisfaction of a job well done. Oh, and a query critique as well. (yes, prizes for the runners-up! I’ve gone soft in my old age.)
Annnd that should cover it! Please keep checking back because new rules may be announced without notice.
Good luck! Only one paragraph can win. Who will it be?
Katherine says
Not again. Not again. Not again. I was drowning in my bedroom. An enormous weight crushed my chest. I gasped hiccups of air—no better than breathing through a straw—and forced each breath into my lungs. Okay, move toward the door. It’s only five feet away. Move. I fell to the ground. My head hit the thinning carpet, rough from so many years of wear. Through the floor, I felt the steady beat of Terri’s music vibrate the house. You. Have. To. Move. I swung an arm forward, only to watch it collapse back to the floor. I moved again and the world dimmed. My lips, I imagined, were already a cadaverous shade of blue. So this was it; a moment I always knew would come sooner rather than later. Funny though, I never thought it would be like this. I always knew I would die early. I was supposed to die early. Just not like this.
Margaret says
Trina kept to a quick, purposeful stride, always moving away from the house she’d hit. She pretended to be an apprentice sent on some important task, knowing most would dismiss her. They couldn’t hear her pounding heart or feel the damp sweat coating her palms.
John C. says
Planning to murder someone was a lot like programming software. For every conditional “if” statement, a “then” would follow, perhaps executing another action with “goto”. The programming language even had a “kill” command. But if the programmer messed up the code, made one minor error, a crash could result. Kyle Matthews couldn’t afford to make an error. A computer had a reset button; real life didn’t.
JoNightshade says
Oh heck, I might as well go for a third entry:
Jana was passing below the balustrade when she overheard the senator’s wife. “Every little girl wants to marry her father, but she’s taken that fantasy to extremes if you ask me.” Jana didn’t have to hear her own name to identify the subject of the conversation. She wanted to rush up the stairs and confront the woman with a cold invective, but castigation would hardly be effective with tears running down her face.
Katherine says
Oliver was on me first. Trembling hands cradling my face as he stared. His skin was sallow and his eyes glassy. “Are you alright?” he asked. My brow furrowed in confusion. Everyone knew I wasn’t alright. That was the whole point. That’s why they were sending me away.
Jennifer says
“Three wishes?” Dan Gawicki repeated to the small man who said he was a fairy.
“Yes,” said the small man, who was indeed a fairy. “Three. Did I stutter?”
“No, but…”
“Chop, chop, I haven’t got all day.”
“Fairies don’t say ‘chop, chop.’ What kind of fairy are you?”
“The kind that gives three wishes and says ‘chop chop.’”
“Are there any rules? Or strings? Or limits? Things you won’t do?”
“Jesus, you’re a pain in the ass. Remind me again how you brought me here.”
“I’m not sure. I was doing a lot of things at once—paying bills online, talking to my mother, making tea, and…”
“Wait. Who’s your mother?”
“Patsy Gawicki. Why?”
“Patsy Gawicki? Your mom is queen of the fairies?!”
“Oh my god!” Dan yelled, “Are you kidding me?” His mother’s obsession with all things Tinkerbell made sense now.
“Yes. Yes, I am.” The fairy chuckled. “Jesus, you’re easy to fuck with.”
“I wish you would quit swearing.”
“Done. No more swearing. What’s your next wish going to be?”
“That’s not fair! You were…”
“Granting your wish. You have two left.”
Joe Tougas says
The Thursday night dinner crowd kept pouring into Miller’s Pub. We were sitting at a table near the front window and looking out on Chicago’s Wabash Avenue, which on this April evening was growing dimmer and chillier as cocktail hour grew hotter. Miller’s matched my memory perfectly – warm and noisy, air thick with the smell of bread, whiskey and barbecue ribs. Aunt Jean and uncle Bob, my only connections to the city anymore, had agreed to meet me here for dinner. We didn’t see each other often, but whenever we did they filled me in on old friends. Every few years I’d learn that a former St. Gabe’s classmate was now a cop, priest, fireman, lesbian, comedian. Tonight I would hear that my first best friend was now a murderer.
me says
When I stepped into Mom’s kitchen that morning, I shivered. But my chill had little to do with the gray, November day enveloping this tiny, Illinois town and far more to do with my beloved aunt’s death.
Topher1961 says
From Rita Skeeter’s Guide to Wizards in Love
It was one of those nights when the coquettishly waxing moon was almost full and neither one of us could sleep. My lover kept turning, each time pulling the covers off of me, and I had to rely on our pre-sleep bourbon to keep me warm. We’d had a fight just before bed—a plethora of bad breath, bad words, and bad feeling. He still insists he’s not gay, that he just likes to have sex with men because it’s rougher. And there’s a veritable cornucopia of men willing to have sex with him. I liked that first idea, that we weren’t gay, we just liked the sex. I mean, I didn’t want to be an outcast. Yet I found that I not only like the sex. I, quaintly, liked Grindelwald. Loved Grindelwald if that was possible in the little bit of time we’d known each other. That night, though, I finally had had enough of the charade and climbed out of bed, planning to sleep on the couch. “Albus,” Grindelwald called. Where are you going?
Gabriele C. says
Lol topher, that so gets my vote. 🙂
Lorraine S. says
They say you can never escape your past. It follows you with long tenacious fingers, sometimes clinging to that unreachable spot on your back, so icy you could shiver. I often feel it there – a live thing scratching and clawing. If it had breath, it would be cold and smelling of rot.
–Historical Fiction
Lorraine S. says
I know now who the dark man was all those years ago in Forfar. I know why we sang and danced in the kirkyard under the Michaelmas moon – why we feasted on the goose Elspeth cooked and why we made up all those ridiculous stories. I know so much more than I did then. I was thirteen years old – just a child my mother told them when we were brought to the tollbooth. And now, I know why so many among us, were taken to the hollow at the north end of the village, there strangled and burnt to ashes in a barrel of tar.
Lorraine S. says
I can never go back to Corfe. The village is lost to me now, a delirium only remembered in sweaty tosses and turns in the night. I wake with the echo of those nightmares bouncing across my heart. A hollowing. On those mornings, I lay in be longer, unmoving, staring out the window. My eyes focus on the ripening apples in the orchard or the roses clamoring up the hen house, the blueness of the sky and the greenness of the fields. I think of the day ahead and all I have to do. Air the beds, rake the oats in the malt house, sweep the floors and forage in the woods for berries. It is only the sweet sound of my daughter singing in the garden to break the spell, and the echo of my dream soon fades from sorrow.
Alison C. says
In the morning, under the porch, my dog had puppies. Dad wrapped them in a bag and gave them to my brother Pete to walk to the lake and throw in. When I screamed about this he got out his shotgun and said he could shoot them instead. I screamed some more, but Dad just laughed and put his gun away. “Go on, Pete” he said. I crawled under the porch to comfort Sissy, my dog, my only friend. She was quiet and sad, like me. “It will be okay”, I told Sissy. I didn’t know if this was true, but it was a mantra I knew well.
Linda says
My memory tugs me to the cool, morning haze. Legs pump, hard, push through the sea of lanky, shin-guarded limbs. The ball rolls out from our tangle of boy bodies, my feet follow, bound down the still dewy field smelling of sweet hay and mud. Whistles pierce the murmuring tide of excited yelling. The world stops. A whorl of white surrounds the kicking, screaming kids, feathers suspend in air, drift up to the shocking blue–
Linda says
My very atoms vibrate: from caffeine, from sleep deprivation, from the constant moving forward. From erratic consumption of my mood regulators. But my mind is sharp, focused; my dreams, Technicolor wonders. Everything I touch explodes from this magical, sub-cellular energy surging within me. When I press the closed hollow-wood door to Bruce’s office, it flies open with a bang. The knob gouges the plaster wall. He sits at his desk, the room dim but for the green glow of a single lamp, head down, not noticing my tumult.
Bee says
Okay, I feel guilty about forcing another one on you, but this is the OTHER opening I was considering for the same YA Fantasy WIP I listed a couple hundred entries back. (Yikes!) I hope this doesn’t double post… I thought I had submitted it before, but it didn’t show up!
Even though she would never admit it, least of all to me, I knew my mother secretly blamed me for the drought. She looked at the dry, cracked ground and billowing dust storms and saw my face in the walls of sand. It was also somehow my fault when the crops shriveled against the hard soil—if they were destined to ever emerge at all. It seemed to me that we had gone so long without rain that nothing could grow anymore. Maybe not even love.
Linda says
The gentle cooing of a mourning dove signals the dawn. I waken, hear the whir of highway traffic and, more distant, the lonesome wail of a train. The sky radiates a softer black, the ashen sheen it takes on just before the sun inches over the curve of the world. Outside my room, the night workers rustle, talk softly, prepare for the next group of caretakers. Someone moans from another room. These are the only sounds; my mind is quiet; there is no noise, no morbid, florid thoughts, no whooshing or thrumming or humming, no lingering nightmares or images or memories. Normal? Is this what normal feels like? I don’t remember.
jamr says
Ruby battled a twenty-pound turkey. She oversalted the stuffing and stitched the sneering cavity with frayed thread. Basting? Ha! Let the wretched creature parch in a dried pool of its own blood. She stomped from the oven to peel an army of stubborn potatoes, knowing both she and they would lose more flesh than necessary. With red-streaked hands, she amputated green bean extremities, the chop, chop, chopping bringing her to a cold decision in that humid kitchen. For the first time in months, her grimace cracked. There’d be an extra ingredient in the pumpkin custard this year.
Heidi says
In the deep of the night she could feel the warmth of the baby against her chest, it’s tiny heart fluttering like the wings of a butterfly against her own. She kissed the soft hair, stroking it with her chin and breathing in the delicious scent of baby powder and new life. The baby began to whimper. “Shh! Don’t cry, Elizabeth,” she whispered, looking furtively over at her husband, asleep beside her. “Please don’t cry. We can’t wake him up.” The baby blinked wide-eyed in the dark, as if trying to understand, then began to whimper again, the quiet cries growing louder. Caroline held her closely and put her hand over the tiny mouth frantically, shushing her while the flailing newborn’s tears stained her nightgown.
Margaret says
Kyrnie ran her claws through the green-brown fur covering her brother’s head. “Your time will come, Tan. Some day your eyes will clear and you’ll earn your weather guide just as I did.”
JulieWeathers says
Colton’s fingers chased the wedge of tongue around the stainless steel basin of the automatic horse waterer. It slithered and darted through the pinkish water as if it were still alive, deftly avoiding his grasp. A few drops of diluted blood trickled through his fingers when he finally captured it, but most had already drained into the water, leaving only pale, blue flesh behind.
stakingmyclaim says
I almost met God the day I died, but He was busy with deserving arrivals. Lucky for me, so was the Devil. And his waiting line was even longer.
Shuffled around in Purgatory like a deck of worn-out cards, I was sent to live among the human race again with an assignment of sorts. Really. To determine my final destination. Problem is my existence was erased from everyone’s memory. I was allowed to retain two…no, three…memory points to start my assignment–my age, which is 33, and my name. Markie. Was I the good little woman who everyone loved or the black ewe everyone hated? Guess it doesn’t matter as I look down at my naked body. I no longer belong to the same gender.
JulieWeathers says
Dahrik’s crying chimes tinkled softly in the gentle summer breeze. “Remember me. I’m still here. Don’t forget.” The bells whispered to her, reminding her of the man who walked the spirit world and haunted hers. The elf lifted her face to the breeze, letting it caress her cheek and brush her lips. Her eyes closed as she drifted back in time. If only she could slip the bonds of time. Even for just a brief moment. One last kiss. One goodbye. Something besides the emptiness and hurt. “Remember me,” the bells reminded.
JulieWeathers says
Amanda bustled about their cottage one morning like the bishop himself was on his way to visit them. “Don’t let her go out there and stain her hands,” she called to Papa as Gentyl went out the back door to help with the farm chores. “She better not get scratched.”
Jordyn says
My daddy grew up here, with the fields full of wild sunflowers in the fall and mosquitoes buzzing in the summer. He sat next to the same girl all through his school years. After graduation (arguably the biggest social even in Ash Creek) the two of them got hitched. Which is the word they use. Not married, not tied the knot, but hitched.
From my YA WIP
Kat says
Entry 2:
The most incredible thing about a big city is that there are millions of people in a relatively small space. Nobody really cares about those around them, nor minds that the person next to them on the underground to Piccadilly Circus dresses or speaks differently than they do. I live in London for that exact reason. There, nobody realizes that I was born 700 years ago.
brian_ohio says
It begins as all trying stories of magic and ruin begin. With the casting of a spell. “Pieces!” This particular enchantment wasn’t shouted as the punctuation noted would indicate, but whispered with such hatred… such venom that the exclamation point would have to do some extra grammatical work… the work of instilling ‘wicked witch with a migraine’ kind of evil.
Curtastrophe says
Entry #1
Mortimer McGurney was given his first name not by his father, but from a funeral director. It was the same man in fact who began dating his mother two weeks after the burial of her husband, Joseph McGurney. Mort’s father died a month before his birth in a botched robbery attempt. On a cold October night at the request of his new (and very pregnant) wife Joseph had been waiting in line at the A&P with a pint of ice cream in one hand, a jar of kosher dills in the other. Twenty-nine years later as Mortimer stood in the doorway facing a short baldheaded man with pasty white skin and jagged teeth his gut clenched. The man spoke in a low voice, “Could someone actually have forseen so much suffering in your newborn eyes to give a name that meant death?” Behind him a company of costumed children marched down the sidewalk. Mort turned off the porch light. “Well, I never let it change me.” Leaving the door open he turned around and walked back into his apartment.
Curtastrophe says
#2
Lucky’s Pub served to a mixed crowd of people. Some were artists or poets who understood that liquor and shitty decor could sometimes ease out the ideas that hid from them during the daily distractions of city life, or just life in general. Others were young professionals who met after work to discuss important business until a few rounds of melon balls or vodka martinis led to an early night of casual sex but rarely anything more fulfilling. Famous celebrities sometimes found their way in for a few drinks and as was always the case, would pay the tab for everyone else in the bar upon leaving. The rest of the customers ranged from camera carrying tourists to the down and out drunks who promised to say kind words in heaven for any person willing to throw a dollar or two into their cup.
Maggie says
I told the Colonel I could start work right away, trying to look earnest instead of hunted. But when I listed references, I left out the people who knew me best and were getting dangerously close to finding me: the police forces from sixteen countries and one nasty continental alliance, assorted international Mafiosi, the very cranky denizens of the northernmost colonies of the moon, and a couple of fleets of hover pirates with no sense of humor at all. Colonel Addison gave me a truly frightening smile, like an irritated lion. The corners of his lips lifted just a little, so he showed his teeth. Nice and sharp. Instead of answering me, he raised the window blinds and watched how I reacted to my first view of the ship. I didn’t even hear him when he said I’d gotten the job.
Topaz says
The winged horses stood restrained in the line of stanchions. These freaks of nature had to be dealt with and my knife was sharp. I approached the first, a pretty bay mare, her eye white with fear. They could smell what happened here, but I didn’t care. I loved the feel of the blood on my hands, the parting of flesh under my fingers as I removed the unnatural wing from her body. Blood dripped down her heaving sides as my breathing quickened. I fondled the stump I had just made, rubbing it as I might my wife.
Anonymous says
Of the few things that she knew were true in her life, he had died because of her. He had suffered wounds from arrows and other weapons because he had been with her. They were what made him sputter his words as he was now; what made him stain the ground with his blood. They were what caused his face to be pale and his eyes to be glassy. He was dying because he had protected her, had fought with her. The one who had aggravated him, teased him, and pushed him to the edge of the world. It was not even her fault that this stupid war had been started; what had caused it was her being born as herself, and the High King’s need for her to be out of the way.
I’m sorry if this has posted multiple times – I wanted to make sure it got through!
ManiacScribbler
jamr says
Danny added a plumeria lei to the damp pile around my neck. Five seconds later he squashed the flowers in a goodbye hug. I wanted like crazy to kiss him, but my parents were staring. I locked eyes with Danny, shooting a million feelings through my gaze. Would he stay faithful? I had to look away before I melted into the kind of crying that led to smeary make-up and runaway snot.
Sofie says
We are all slaves to someone… or something… and Salter Breeden was both. The blade preceded his hand and a curl of wood wound up over his knuckles like chimney smoke as Salter finished carving the initials and the date into a beam – high up enough that no one would notice for a very long time. Maybe if he just drove the knife blade down into the wood deep enough he might be able to lodge there, dig in and never have to leave his home, this place of enslavement.
Gerri says
2.
I grounded the sword tip into the basalt dais and wrapped both hands around the hilt, just to give myself something to do. Standing up in front of a huge crowd, playing human shield between the Dark Throne and the rest of humanity was nice work most of the time, but on cycles like this one, with Festival of Renewal in full swing, being Champion to the Skotios meant being bored out of my wits while looking like a distant and untouchable fighting machine with breasts.
3.
Catana’s eyes snapped open. Someone was rustling downstairs, clear across the house. Father, by the sound of the shuffle of the slippers. She flipped over and buried her face in the thin, worn pillow. Please, no. She’d just gotten to sleep a few minutes ago, and he was already out of bed?
Curtastrophe says
#3
The hallway leading to the bathroom was no different than that of any other juke joint in the city. The walls were marked with obscene pictures, political statements, telephone numbers, famous (and some not so famous) quotes, and anything else that an impulsive patron decided was appropriate to add. They were updated with such frequency that at times it seemed as if this mosaic of vandalism was an invasive plant that required not fertile black soil, but only an intoxicated thrill seeker with a black magic marker on which it thrived. “Please don’t tell me you get used to the smell of this place.” Nadine said, the bridge of her nose wrinkling as she led me into the bathroom. She had found an old first aid kit in the storage room and was already opening a package of cotton gauze as the warm water from the faucet washed down the dried blood. “Alright give me your hand” she said. “This will probably hurt won’t it?” “Yeah.” I gritted my teeth as she held a set of tweezers to extract the pieces of glass. In my mind’s eye I saw thousands of pissed off ants as they swarmed my palm, just waiting for a signal from the queen. There was silence. I opened my eyes to see her smiling. “I don’t see anything. It looks like you got lucky.” “Lucky…” I said quietly. Breathing a sigh of relief I hugged her with one arm. “Thank you.” “No problem, now let’s get out of here and have a drink. There’s something I want to tell you.” I attempted to stutter out a laugh until I looked up. “What’s wrong?” she said. On the ceiling was written a phrase: Uneven and Upwards the Cycle Spins!! “Nothing.” I said, “I’ve just never noticed that before.” She gave me a look that I had seen from her on countless occasions in the past. It was an expression that I had tried in vain to forget about, but from somewhere in the shadows of my mind a taunting whisper reminded me that this would never be so. “Tell me.”
Kat says
Entry 3:
Nicole sighed as she pulled her blonde hair into a ponytail, taking in the beauty of the decaying abbey around her. To her left was a dark room, which appeared to have been a chapel before the place was deserted. A single drop of rain trickled down the colorful stone that still remained, and as she stepped over a puddle of water beneath a narrow archway, a crow screamed from overhead. A moment later, she was standing in the sunlight of England, 1066 AD.
—–
So close to 700! You definitely deserve a huge bunch of thanks for being brave enough to host a second contest!
cow-tipper says
That moment was like a speeding bullet in reverse. It’s funny how words can do that – cause a violent emotional reaction. The right words in the right order can make my head hot or insert a pause in the flow of my breathing. It was like that too, and it caused confusion in my thoughts, and the voice said: “He will be born without the capacity to ever really know you, to ever see you, or to hear you.”
emilyofnewmoon says
Sorry Nathan! Couldn’t resist number two. From a YA WIP…
I remember the first time I heard about The Game. It was half past eight on a Tuesday morning, and I was walking, late and invisibly, down the corridor that leads to the canteen. It’s not difficult, being invisible, when you’re a fat girl. Ironic, given my size, but not hard. Think about the fat girl in your class, or your library group, or your scout troop. Was she around yesterday? What time did she leave? Who did she speak to? You didn’t notice. Maybe you saw what she had for lunch, if you’re particularly vindictive, and took note of how many sandwiches she horsed into before giggling about it with your friends. But what was she wearing? You haven’t a clue. Mind you, I’m not complaining. It can be handy being invisible, most of the time. And so it was on this particular morning, when I was 10 minutes late for breakfast and determined to avoid my third-in-a-row Late Fine.
Sofie says
Daddy’s are a peculiar breed. Donors of half of your chromosomes, but not bound to stick around to see which half they gave up.
Sofie says
Russell Freeman went through wives like a cross-eyed carpenter goes through nails. He loved women. All women. Young, old, fat, thin, and generally they had all loved him. But he was neglectful and left them wanting until, one-by-one, they had all left him. All four of them.
Sofie says
Russell Freeman went through wives like a cross-eyed carpenter goes through nails. He loved women. All women. Young, old, fat, thin, and generally they had all loved him. But he was neglectful and left them wanting until, one-by-one, they had all left him. All four of them.
Sofie says
We are all slaves to someone… or something… and Salter Breeden was both. The blade preceded his hand and a curl of wood wound up over his knuckles like chimney smoke as Salter finished carving the initials and the date into a beam – high up enough that no one would notice for a very long time. Maybe if he just drove the knife blade down into the wood deep enough he might be able to lodge there, dig in and never have to leave his home, this place of enslavement.
Nathan Bransford says
TIME’S UP!! Thank you everyone for entering. Check back tomorrow for the finalists.
And please wish me, May and our respective livers a great deal of luck.
sylvia says
Late night last minute addition:
The deadline was Thursday night. My fingers shook as I googled for the time in San Francisco. I felt my stomach freeze when I saw the result. Too late; the moment has passed. I could hear his voice, the soft chuckle as he reminded me not to ignore the guidelines. I knew he was right. So simple and yet … had I really missed my chance? I couldn’t believe that. I had to try.
Nathan Bransford says
sylvia-
You’re in. Blogger says 5:00 on the dot.
Kat says
Good luck, Nathan and May and your respective livers! Props to you all. 🙂
Josephine Damian says
Good luck Nathan and May!
I’ve been judging as I go, and will post my own choices on my blog tonight! After “Survivor” is over. Nathan has his favorite show, and I have mine!
Anonymous says
Whispering “for Mother…for Gaia…the Goddess, Helen stepped into the sunlit great hall of the palace. She felt the heat of the central hearth fire, the bodies crammed along the walls, and the wetness under her arms. “You’re ready, Helen,” Mother had said, but Helen didn’t feel ready, certainly not to perform the dance of Creation before the outsider, the famed Theseus, King ofAthens. She’d danced at the altar in front of the clan mothers and the people, but Theseus and his Achaeans worshipped an alien god, Zeus. She feared he might disparage her and the Goddess’ sacred rite. “A visitor doesn’t insult his host,” Mother had said. “You can do this.”