I love to write and I like to always be working on a writing project but the past couple of weeks have been nerve-wracking because I've had no particular creative project going. I need to start writing short stories, for several reasons. One, it’s good training as a writer. Two, there’s a great market for short stories that are well written. I can actually get paid for a decent short story. I’ve never really been good at writing short stories, though. I can count on one hand the number of short fictional stories I’ve written in the past 30 or so years and none are publishable.
The last time I tried writing a short story it turned into a novel, which I am still working on, or more accurately, waiting for feedback from several folks so I can start revisions. After I write a first draft I have to put it away so I can go back a few weeks or months later and see it with fresh eyes. Otherwise I'm too close to it and I can't be objective.
One way to get excited about working on a writing project is to start with what’s called a writing prompt. In other words, do something to spark the old imagination and get the fingers flying over the keyboard. So I decided to brainstorm a little bit and post ten sentences here and get y’all to vote for which ones you find most interesting. In other words, if you saw a story that started with this sentence, you’d be intrigued enough to want to read the story.
A good first sentence makes the reader excited about reading more. Stephen King famously described it this way: “An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story,” he said. “It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”
So here are my efforts. Please weigh in:
- “Gail awoke on the floor by the fridge, with the certain knowledge that today, unlike every day for the past fifteen years, would be the first day of a new beginning in her life – a terrifying thought.”
- “I never saw it coming, the bright blue electric car that hurtled out of nowhere and ran over my foot.”
- “Ann should have listened to that little voice in her head that said quite clearly, as soon as she saw him, he’s not the one, but of course she dismissed it.”
- “Elaine’s friends and neighbors thought she was elegant and tasteful and her home was right out of a magazine but if they had known the truth about her kitchen they would have called the police immediately.”
- “Sandy had watched the sad parade of employees cleaning out their offices for months and said many prayers for everyone, but when the word came down that she should clean out her cubicle she could only stand there stupidly thinking this must be a dream and I need to wake up now, please.”
- “After the audition, Bella looked at all the other hopefuls sitting in the old theater seats and thought, it’s always the same, I should get that role but it will go to whoever is tallest and has the biggest rack.”
- “I love my son but there needs to be a medication invented so kids can skip the teenage years and just go straight from adolescent to person who has a fully functional brain.”
- “The possum chewed on a cantaloupe rind with pleasure so deep he didn’t notice, across the yard, the hound dog who was streaking across the patio, hell-bent on biting his butt.”
- “Angela noticed the light first, the light auras around everyone, all colors of the rainbow, shimmering with an unearthly glow.”
- “Danny should have known the will would be where his uncle had left it, wrapped around a bottle of Crown Royal, sitting inside his gym bag beneath his smelly socks and right on top of a loaded .38 pistol.”
