Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion
Brainstormin' Help
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Random First Sentences
message 151:
by
Kyra
(new)
Dec 08, 2012 10:40PM
(laughs and claps hands) Guy, you continue to astound me with your brilliance.
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LoL! Thank you, Kyra, but I assure you that I am not brilliant. I've just been reading for a lot longer than you: it can give a false impression.Now I'm hitting the kip.
Thank you Stephanie! What would be funny is if the stories in this week's competition all began with one of these interesting sentences. Hey! Maybe we can talk to one of the mod's about using one of these as a prompt? Thoughts, anyone?
The writer, having been at one time in his life mistakenly labelled as 'brilliant,' discovered to his endless chagrine that he was at best able to write nearly memorable greeting card quips.
I like the one, I think Guy you said it, "Death and I are old friends" or something like that. It just sounds like a really good way to start off a story.
I like that too, but it wasn't me. Sounds awfully M-ish, to me. [Pause to check.]Sorry Edward, but it is an Edwardism!
Edward wrote: "Death and I are old friends; I met him around the fall of the Roman Empire."Here is is! Sorry I got it wrong Edward. You get all the credit in the end though :D
Yeah, I'm the death-obsessed one.... Wow, that sounded dark. I should watch something cheerful now, like Criminal Minds.
HAhaha. I've found lot of books that catch my interest start with death. It either mentions it or it might be a death of a charter you learn more about later.
“One summer morning in 1983, I was looking for a book on a shelf of the local public library.”
RotFL, M! That is so sneaky, throwing a real first line in here!Okay, is this one real or is it memorex?
"Tonight we are going to show you eight silent ways to kill a man."
Guy, I knew that if anyone would recognize it, you would!I can’t guess what book the line you posted is from, but it wouldn’t have been out of place as an opening line in The Twilight Zone.
Your intuition is working very well, as usual, M. It is an old sci-fi book by Joe Haldeman, called 'The Forever War'.Is this sentence a real one or one of my creation?
"The wind coming in off the water stung my cheeks and snapped my long unbound hair."
Um... one of your own??? I honestly have no idea.
And is the speaker’s hair long, or long unbound?
My own, and I love the ambiguity of 'long unbound'! I have taken it to be not bound in a long time.
Okay, how about this one?Joan Canary was the Reincarnation Baby.
Not yours. I have no idea where it came from, but it doesn't sound like one of yours.
MISTER SANDMAN!!! That's where it came from. (What? Google?? No, never!!! XD)
How about this one:"The grandeur of City Hall – even the cathedral-like grandeur of Philadelphia’s City Hall – could not hide the mind-numbing and pedestrian boredom that imbued every type of bureaucratic facility."
LoL, Kyra. Yes, one of my favourite books. It has the best opening paragraph ever! Please tell me you've read it!Edward, that sounds like yours.
Yeah ... Should I be flattered or worried that my writing is so identifiable? I send bits of books and some of my manuscript to my friends, often without explaining where they came from, and they're usually able to tell what's mine.
I think that's a good thing. It means you have a clear voice.
Okay, is this one mine or memorex?He sat down at the empty table to eat day old Chinese with a fork and consider his options.
Yes.How about this one?
I stood in front of the mirror as if it could confirm that I really did exist.
Not you? But don't ask me where from if that's right.
Perfectly alright, of course. However, it is mine. (Of course, some other monkey somewhere else on the planet will likely have written the exact same sentence!)Okay, how about this one?
I take pride withal in my humiliation, and as I am to this privilege condemned, almost I find joy in an abhorrent salvation; I am, I believe, alone of all our race, the only man in human memory to have been shipwrecked and cast up upon a deserted ship.
Guy, that last reminds me of "The Ancient Mariner."
Actually, now that you've pointed that out, it does indeed feel like it, but it isn't. Nor is it mine: it comes from one of my all time favourite books, The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco.
My guess for #275 would have been The Invisible Man. Now I know it’s from The Invisible Guy.
LoL! I hadn't thought of that.And I apologize to Al for usurping the thread a little by turning it into a random guessing game and not just a random first sentence game.
The dawn came early, too early for his liking.
Terror gripped my soul and I couldn't move. Blood covered the ground but rather than that there was no evidence of the attack.
Oh, I was just typing something. You know, random first sentence.
Stephanie, I like that as a first sentence very much. Very Hitchcockian.Kyra, I think that 281 is mine, but now it is so long since I posted it I've forgotten.
What he knew was that the key was kept beneath the door, but what he didn't was how to open the door to get it.
Thanks, Guy. And I like that one you just posted. Nice.Boredom is the most awful thing one can have; that's what my mother says at least. But when you're bored, you're safe. It's when things get exciting that you start getting hurt.
Stars pinpointed the navy sky and constellations formed jagged pictures above her head.
Just random :)
Just random :)
The woman working at the pizzaria was starting to look very tasty.
He leaned in and whispered, his warm breath brushing against her ear, "You're as beautiful as a tire fire."
That one was pretty good, Liz. :D
[Thanks! I think I was meant to write romance. :P]
I watched the conflagration and wondered how he got that way.
Guy wrote: "The woman working at the pizzaria was starting to look very tasty."HA!
It was the scream that caught my attention. High pitched and shrill, it pierced through the noise of the crowd and ripped its way above our heads.
