It’s time of the granddaddy of them all, our sort-of-annual first paragraph challenge! Will your paragraph wow the masses? Do you have the first paragraph to end all first paragraphs?
We shall soon find out.
Let’s get to the good stuff. THE PRIZES!
The ULTIMATE GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the SUFPC will win:
1) The opportunity to have a partial manuscript considered by my utterly fantastic agent, Catherine Drayton of InkWell, whose clients include bestselling authors such as Markus Zusak (The Book Thief), John Flanagan (The Ranger’s Apprentice series) and Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush Hush), among others.
2) A signed advance copy of my novel, JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE COSMIC SPACE KAPOW, which is coming out in May:
3) The pride of knowing your paragraph was like the platonic ideal of first paragraphs it was so awesome.
The FABULOUS RUNNERS UP will receive the satisfaction of knowing that they were among the very best, as well as a query critique from yours truly.
There may also be honorable mentions, where still more satisfaction will be had.
So! Here’s how this works. Please read these rules carefully:
a) This is a for-fun contest. Rules may be adjusted without notice, but this one will always remain: please don’t take the contest overly seriously. This is for fun. Yes, the grand prize is awesome and I would have kidnapped a baby koala bear to have my manuscript considered by Catherine Drayton without so much as a query, but don’t let that detract from the for-funness of the contest. For fun. Seriously.
b) Please post the first paragraph of any work-in-progress in the comments section of THIS POST. Please do not e-mail me your submission. The deadline for entry is THURSDAY 4pm Pacific time, at which point entries will be closed. Finalists will be announced…. sometime after that. (Possibly Friday, possibly the following Monday, possibly the year 2032 but probably not the year 2032). When the finalists are announced you will exercise your democratic rights to vote for a stupendously ultimate winner.
c) Please please check and double-check and triple-check your entry before posting. But if you spot an error after posting: please do not re-post your entry. I go through the entries sequentially and the repeated deja vu repeated deja vu from reading the same entry only slightly different makes my head spin. I’m not worried about typos, nor should you be.
d) You may enter once, once you may enter, and enter once you may. If you post anonymously, make sure you leave your name.
e) Spreading word about the contest is strongly encouraged.
f) I will be sole judge of the finalists. You the people will be the sole judge of the ultimate winner.
g) I am not imposing a word count on the paragraphs. However, a paragraph that is overly long may lose points in the judge’s eyes. Use your own discretion.
h) Please remember that the paragraph needs to be a paragraph, not multiple paragraphs masquerading as one paragraph.
i) You must be at least 14 years old and less than 147 years old to enter. No exceptions.
j) I’m on Twitter! You can find me at @nathanbransford and I may be posting updates about the contest.
That is all.
GOOD LUCK! May the best paragraph win and may it be rather awesome.
Book title: The Implosion
Jeremy took off his Burberry sunglasses, slipping them inside his shirt pocket. He donned a baseball cap that was conspicuously embroidered with his company’s logo in their place. Shielding his eyes with his hand he looked overhead. Large cotton candy clouds seemed to be hanging motionless in the sky and the humidity was high—Perfect! The day was unfolding as though scripted.
Not all the dead left everything behind. Some checked their emotional baggage through and found it, never lost or misdirected, waiting on the other side. It therefore seemed only natural to Dana that after three years, she had come to think of herself not as a counselor but as a porter, a lightener of loads, a sharer of final burdens.
The rainfall pattered at his feet, his bloodied, scratched converses. The city lights shone in the distance, as he rested against the hood of the car.
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty. The steps were small and timid, and his feet would slip every few. Twenty-four, twenty-six, twenty-eight. Skipping by two seemed like it may make this journey pass by faster, end sooner. It wasn't as if he were on a journey, because he had no destination. Really, he was running from something rather than to anything of interest. He didn't care anymore. Perhaps even with this effort, carrying himself up this flight of stairs–it was worthless. Why bother? he thought every ten steps. And all this counting. OCD now, is it? Wonderful, he whined. As I die, I'll be panicking about how my killer's third button was in the fourth hole. Good Lord.
The best chocolate in the world? Pink grapefruit Peruivian dark chocolate. Eight dollars a bar at ChocoDesiro in Yorkvile. Unfortunately, Kate only had six dollars to her name. The best eye candy? The clerk at ChocoDesiro.
Fallacia stood away from the crowd, under one of the many oil-burning street lamps. The oily flames flickered atop their wicks, tossing shadows on the walls of the shops, inns, and taverns, most of which were emptying now if they hadn't already. Even on so chilled a night, the town square was choked by the mass of onlookers. Many pushed and shoved, most talked and gossiped, some laughed. They surrounded the platform in the square's center. As tall as a man, the platform itself was a hundred-year-old stage. Gray wood weathered by pounding sun, howling winds, and driving rain. Rough grain etched, stained, haunted by silent screams and warm blood.
After the red brake lights dimmed in the distance, I stood in the alleyway, surrounded only by my six pieces of unmanageable luggage and the faint smell of unfamiliar day-old spices baking in the sweltering heat. For the first time, the muggy air of Taiwan wrapped around me, enveloping me in entirety. It seemed unbelievable that only twenty-odd hours of travel transported me from my comfortable queen sized bed at home in Illinois to this austere alleyway in Taipei. Before leaving my parents at the airport to board China Airlines, coming to Taiwan seemed like the perfect adventure for me, a way to find my identity, to define myself apart from every other sorority girl who graduated from Millikin University, like me. I wanted to build a story of my own. But in this moment, my knees quivered as I released my last American breath and sucked in the foreign air of my new home. Now, even my insides had changed.
James Williamson Bosler followed the American dream of his grandfather when he left Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1851 for the lawless west. By 1879, he built relationships with prominent men such as Grenville Dodge, Buffalo Bill, President James Garfield, and Senator Stephen Dorsey. At the time of his death, Congressman James Blaine wrote to Helen Bosler, "As the years go by I realize more and more how great was my own loss in the death of your husband, and from that I can realize in some faint degree how inestimable was your affection. He was the dearest and most unselfish of friends, and I keep his memory green in my heart."
– Christine
The Phoenix heat was so oppressive that Carter Macaulay, driven out of his mother and step-father’s child-packed house, fled to the streets. Outside, he squinted in the hundred and twenty-five degree temperature. He could see the street baking, the intense heat rising like smoke while he wiped his wet brow and pushed his hair away from his face with the tips of his fingers. He walked to the gas station to get a cold drink. Inside the station, he pulled an ice cold can of soda from the refrigerator, paying the clerk with the change in his pocket. As he left the cool, air-conditioned store, a turquoise convertible Impala rolled up in front of one of the pumps. The driver, an attractive, young woman, got out. Carter, leaning against the station wall, stretched his body easily as the woman walked past him into the store. She was wearing stars, stars on the blue sweater covering her full-moon breasts, stars hanging from her ears, stars on her skirt, stars even embedded into her nails. The gold star dangling from her key chain hit her leg, as her left hand swung back and forth past her bare thigh. The woman walked up to the old man at the cash register and handed him her credit card. Outside, in the heat, Carter's blue eyes were half-closed; his longish blond hair was falling in his face; his too tight, gray tank top, wet from sweat, stuck to his chest. The girl returned, peeling the wrapper from a chocolate bar. Carter ran the ice cold can against his face, neck, and over his chest. His hands tightened around the can. She placed the candy bar in her mouth, closing her red lips around it. She closed her eyes. Carter slipped his finger through the metal ring and pulled. Pop. The pressure was released.
I’ve watched her for weeks now. Watched her and watched out for her. Ever since the accident, I can’t spleem to leave her side and I don’t want to. I’ve convinced myself that she needs me and somehow I need her too. Sometimes I feel like a stalker or something, but is it still wrong if she doesn’t know I’m there? Don’t get me wrong, I want her to see me the way I see her but I don’t know if I can. I mean, is she ready?
You can tell a farmer's wife by her hands. They're just like my mom's–chapped, calloused and knobby knuckled. There's strength in them. A grasp that shows they mean business. It doesn't matter if they're changing a baby's diaper or plucking a freshly butchered chicken, it's all about getting it done so they can move on to the next task.
My name is Aara Van Morrison and I live in Tucson, Arizona. If you’re thinking Van Morrison is a name only a dead Irish rock star could have, you might be right, considering my real last name is a secret carried to the grave by my mother.
***I hope this isn't a duplicate! I searched all over and can't find it ***
The Phoenix heat was so oppressive that Carter Macaulay, driven out of his mother and step-father’s child-packed house, fled to the streets. Outside, he squinted in the hundred and twenty-five degree temperature. He could see the street baking, the intense heat rising like smoke while he wiped his wet brow and pushed his hair away from his face with the tips of his fingers. He walked to the gas station to get a cold drink. Inside the station, he pulled an ice cold can of soda from the refrigerator, paying the clerk with the change in his pocket. As he left the cool, air-conditioned store, a turquoise convertible Impala rolled up in front of one of the pumps. The driver, an attractive, young woman, got out. Carter, leaning against the station wall, stretched his body easily as the woman walked past him into the store. She was wearing stars, stars on the blue sweater covering her full-moon breasts, stars hanging from her ears, stars on her skirt, stars even embedded into her nails. The gold star dangling from her key chain hit her leg, as her left hand swung back and forth past her bare thigh. The woman walked up to the old man at the cash register and handed him her credit card. Outside, in the heat, Carter's blue eyes were half-closed; his longish blond hair was falling in his face; his too tight, gray tank top, wet from sweat, stuck to his chest. The girl returned, peeling the wrapper from a chocolate bar. Carter ran the ice cold can against his face, neck, and over his chest. His hands tightened around the can. She placed the candy bar in her mouth, closing her red lips around it. She closed her eyes. Carter slipped his finger through the metal ring and pulled. Pop. The pressure was released.
“Well at least Daddy’s dead and he’ll never know,” Margaret spat.
Gen sucked in her breath, blinking back tears. She had waited to tell Margaret last. “Mags, I just said Collin and I are separating. We’re taking a break.”
“Riiiight, Margaret interrupted, “what’s his name?”
Tears of hatred tumbled down Genevieve’s face. “His name?” she squeaked, half attempting to lie. “His name?”
Margaret was silent.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gen yelled, her turn at furious, hanging up the phone.
Ben shoved a hand into his jeans pocket and jiggled the medallion, his good luck charm, his link to another time. He scanned the sidewalk again as he paced in front of the Tutti Fruitti Ice Cream shop. Just the usual after school crowd. Waiting out here wasn’t keeping his nerves from frying. He should go in.
Parker followed Sunny into her bedroom. Sunny led him by the hand. Her hand felt warm and soft around his. He wondered what other parts of her body might feel warm and soft. Sunny closed the door and led him to her bed. Parker wondered if Mrs. Harper knew where they were, if she heard the bedroom door close, if she knew her fourteen-year-old daughter had a boy in her room.
Leo Marston hadn't killed anyone in ten years, but when the man stepped into his coin shop, and the hair on the back of his neck rose, he knew that could change today. He didn’t recognize the man, but he knew the look—of a professional killer, he’d been that man not so many years ago.
The first night after my husband left, I moved my tissue box, my my stack of books and my alarm clock to his side of the bed and staked my claim. Fine buddy,I thought, as I tucked myself in diagonally across my new territory. Be gone. But the bed's all mine.
He knew he had lucked out so far. The exam slid in front of him, he clenched his pencil in his hand and looked down at a mass of swirling unrecognizable symbols. Shit. Unless he concentrated and focused on disentangling the spaghetti into some kind of meaningful English, he was fried. His “issue” was back in full force. The other teachers had worked out ways of getting around it; mainly because of his parents. It all came down to his parents. They had been aggressive in dealing with the school bureaucracy. Yes he was lucky but he was worried also. His parents couldn’t do this forever. And they hadn’t succeeded with her. Time was passing and all that was on his paper were smears of sweat from his hands.