A Spring Gift from WITS: Share Your First Lines!
Every so often, we open the doors of WITS to our readers. It's our version of Open Mic Night where you get to take the stage. We like hearing what you're up to in your writing and, since we just made the turn into Spring, it seems like a great time to hear about new beginnings.
Today, we'd love to hear your first lines for a new manuscript or short story. If that sounds daunting, give us the first line of your new chapter, or the first line of one of your favorite books. We want to make it easy!
The Power of First Lines
Fabulous first lines tend to stick with all of us. We ponder them, agonize over them, rewrite them, and rewrite them again. And more than once, we've actually purchased a book based on a breathtaking first line or paragraph.
Our own Laura Drake has offered some great advice on writing a winning first line:
"A first line is a promise to the reader, telling them what kind of book this is. What your voice is. Maybe who the main character is. A good first line will pull a reader into a story. here.
Let's Hear Yours!
Today, it's your turn to entertain or wow us with your opening lines. If you can't think of anything, share a favorite from someone else. Give us the title and genre, then your opening line(s).
Feel free to comment on others' as well, and tag your writing friends on the post so they can share theirs!
We'll get you started.
Ellen
Jack clenched his hands at his sides, glaring at Papa. The man, aged beyond his years, had collapsed on his chair, keeping watch over his fragile wife through a whiskey fog.
Opening from The Hobo Code, a YA historical fiction WIP from Ellen L. Buikema
Jenn
Leave it to a fanghole to interrupt a perfectly good retirement.
Opening line from Evil's Lethal Addiction, book 5 in the Alexis Black Novels from Jenn Windrow
Jenny
New life, new adventure, new planet. When your old life becomes unbearable, the only way forward is to reach for something new. But maybe this was too much new.
Opening from Dance Upon the Moon, a sci-fi short story from Jenny Hansen
Lisa
Kadi was used to serving a bar full of aliens. A galaxy of fake aliens passed through her doors each day, and she enjoyed every one of them. Well, almost.
Opening from An Alien Walks into a Bar (Spaceport book 1) by Deleyna Marr (or Trina Malone...TBD)
Lynette
It should have been easy to find her murderous sister.
Miranda Clarke glowered at the diner’s grumbling mechanical dishwasher. She had plenty of motivation to find her younger sister, but finding Irene Earnshaw, formerly the wife of the Prophet and the Fellowship’s Lady of the United States, wasn’t as easy as Miranda had hoped.
Opening from Book Three of my Fellowship Dystopia series, And When I Wake, to be published this fall.
Now it's your turn. Share your opening lines (or a favorite from another author) below!
We hope this helps kick off a great month of writing!
Ellen, Jenn, Jenny, Lisa & Lynette
Top Photo purchased from Depositphotos.
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185 comments on “A Spring Gift from WITS: Share Your First Lines!”
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"If someone told me I’d have to die to be a hero, I’m not sure I would have taken the job."
'CHOICES', by Jaime Buckley
Nice!
"You've got some big ones, mister, to waltz in here like that."
Opening from KEEP THE CHANGE, a mystery short story by Bob Beckley,
Nice hook. I'd definitely read further.
Oh, this is enticing!
Love it!
Great opening! I am intrigued.
I would definitely keep reading!
Love that!
"I didn’t ask to be kidnapped, but I wasn’t exactly protesting it either."
'The Lost Siren' by Raven Storm.
I like it!
Slowly, Samantha comes to her senses, and the first thing she’s aware of is the unbearable pain in every inch of her body. As if her limbs are ripped apart and her insides pulled out, every fiber of her body screams with excruciating pain. Her throat and chest are burning, and she struggles to breathe. She gasps for air, and liquid gurgles in her throat and mouth. Without the strength to cough or spit, she pushes the bitter, viscous liquid with her tongue and lets it drip out of her mouth. The cold, wet air makes it even harder to breathe. Every breath she takes is a chunk of icy lead crushing into her lungs, and something heavy and gooey holds down her sore, burning eyelids. Unable to open her eyes, she wonders if she has lost her sight.
Yours are all ah-mazing! Here's mine, from a Suspense novel I hope to have out this year.
My life wasn’t destroyed like in the movies, with technicolor explosions and a huge fireball. It was more like a level nine Richter scale earthquake—you wake to the jarring, jolting shock of awareness that the ground you always thought was permanent, isn’t.
Then the ceiling comes down on your head.
I love the image you create here - nothing shakes things up like an earthquake.
I wonder if changing the order of things might be even more impactful, like starting with "It was like a level nine on the Richter Scale ... "
I just offer that, because as a reader, that's where my attention was immediately drawn.
From my YA novel I'm working on.
When you’re woken at 4am by someone hammering their fists on your front gate, like they’re trying to totally smash it off its hinges, you know this isn’t going to be good.
When they’re shouting your name over and over, ‘Joel! Joel!’, you know this is going to be personal. When you recognise the voice as your dad’s best friend, and he’s supposed to be over the border in Balkhistan with your dad, chasing a civil war news story, you’re sure, the second you wake, that this is really, really bad.
Nice, Julia.
I LOVE the escalating progression of this. Nice!
Your writing is always like that first hit of a new drug that pulls me along to the next, and the next, and the next.
Talk about ah-mazing! Wow. This gives me emotion without ever using a label or physical reaction and it makes me want to read more.
Fantastic imagery!
This is fantastic, Laura!
Wasabi on the nipples burns.
First line from my psychological crime thriller, Wasabi Burns. First draft. First of a series.
I love this, Laura. I was immediately drawn in by it. I understand Jennifer Tooker's suggestion--and it is a good one--but as a huge movie fan, I like the sequence as you already have it. And your line, "Then the ceiling..." is fantastic! 🙂
Ooooh. I'm already looking forward to it!
Nice!
These are from the 1st and 2nd books of my trilogy in progress...
“Hate giving death notices,” the older officer grumbled, pulling a gloved hand from his coat pocket and stabbing the glowing button. “Jeez, it’s cold tonight.”
…. mistake… mistake... mistake... the ominous mantra echoed in time with the thump of Cole Roberts' heart.
Cyndee - you've got my interest!
Intrigued for sure.
The doctor said to wait, but Jayla felt fine. The run felt good—clean air in, tension out—aside from the nanoflex tugging at her thighs and poofing at her hips. She pretended not to notice. Pretended not to remember how the fabric got stretched in the first place.
First novel, WIP: World Beyond the Song.
Uh oh. Sounds like Jayla's going to be in trouble soon. Guess we'd have to read more to find out.
Hi Cyndee,
The "...mistake...mistake...mistake..." line totally intrigued me. It's original and relatable. I would keep reading. 🙂
Yet another solid tease!
Damien, the Duke of Blackwood, floated through the battlefield. Gunfire echoed in the distance while smoke and the smell of burning flesh stung his nostrils. Suddenly, he realized he was no longer in battle.
eerily nice ... floating through a battlefield ... love it!
Intriguing...
Oooh, spooky.
"Suddenly, he realized he was no longer in the battle." Okay, I'm hooked. I would need to know what comes next.
... floated??? Ok, that sounds interesting!
“Masturbation.”
I stop digging in my purse and snap my head in Mom’s direction. “Willow, did she say what I thought she said?”
The aide nods and rolls her eyes. “Yup.” She sweeps her pink bangs off her forehead and pushes Mom’s wheelchair to the bathroom door.
First few lines of my novel, "Your Number's Up," a comedy/mystery about a 102-year-old woman with dementia and ESP.
talk about a head-turner ... haha.
Ha!
This definitely draws me in, especially with your one line description of the story.
Nice. I can see and hear this.
Whelp! That's gonna get some attention!
It's hard to beat "masturbation" for a first line.
(Ha! See that 15 year-old adolescent sense of humor I have there?)
From In High Cotton, by Ane Mulligan
Sadie always says, “Southern women may seem as delicate as flowers, but we've got iron in our veins.”
We're about to feel the iron, aren't we?
ooooh. My mama was a Southern woman. Someone's in trouble...
Great opening, Ane!
I'm bever quite sure whether to include the prologue or not in these things. So here's the opening lines of my WIP prologue, and the opening lines of Chapter 1.
Title - Restoration. Volume 4 of The recitors of Kandar. Epic Fantasy.
(The final vlume of the story.)
Prologue-The Weft
Her eyelids sank despite her efforts to hold them open. The meal in her belly, and the warmth of the wingless one’s thighs beneath her, fed her contentment. The rocking of the dead-tree vessel was pleasant, and the water’s song merged with the melody of her sisters’ minds, calling to her to join their dreaming.
Chpter 1. Difficult Choices.
“Nooo!”
A woman holding a child screamed from the front of the shouting crowd, her body pressed against the barricade of spears held in place by the local soldiers. Everything she wore was old, shabby, and patched, but the infant in her arms was wrapped in a beautiful handmade lacy blanket of pure white.
The clean fabric caught Tam’s eye, contrasting with the drabness of the arms holding it. /The child wears the best she owns./
Behind her, distressed, angry, despairing people heaved and moaned, waving arms, crying, begging, and pleading. Helpless people who knew they could not stop the approaching destruction, who had no power to fight back against the local soldiers and a full Sept of forty-nine mail-clad Tyrean Warriors, plus a Sorceress and her Ponfour. People who were about to lose everything they owned.
Your prologue is lovely but doesn't engage me right away. The opening of your first chapter does indeed engage me: mother with baby, soldiers with spears, a terrified crowd---the tension is all there.
You include the one most likely to catch us! And that Chapter 1 is powerful.
I had an almost uncontrollable urge to destroy something—anything. I had unconsciously filled my well with energy and prepared a spontaneous combustion spell; all I needed was a target. I glanced around my house in Billings, Montana, looking for something suitable. All I saw was the aftermath of Julie’s abduction.
From "The Legend of Julie Grodon", the second book in the Earther Wizard series. Scheduled for release in June.
I feel your character's rage and urgency, and I can easily visualize the scene. However, I'm put off right away by a first-person narrator who does anything unconsciously. Subconsciously and realizing it after the fact, yes. But unconsciously, no (even from a wizard-type guy).
I'm there!
Of the three wingback chairs in my library, only one is upholstered in human skin. There's a reason for that.
Opening line of Confessions of a Professional Psychopath (action-adventure, thriller) by Eric Stringer (pseudonym of Harvey Stanbrough)
Whoa! Cleanup in Aisle 4!
Did the guy not see the working end of my Kimber Ten II .45 pointed directly at him?
Opening line of Blackwell Ops 39: More Paul Stringer (action-adventure, crime thriller, romance from the Blackwell Ops series by Harvey Stanbrough)
Yikes!!
Your first opening grabs me more than the second, not only in itself but because a dealer in rare books once told me of seeing a book bound in human skin. But a chair---let alone a wingback, with all those complicated surfaces needing to be cut and fitted? Imagine the craftsmanship. Imagine the visitors who sit on the chair, knowing or not knowing what covers it. Yuk.
That first one caught me right away and gave me the creeps! I'd be reading on fast. The second one took me a little more reading to catch, but it also paints a fascinating scene in only a few words.
This time it wasn’t just a smudge or a spot. It was bright red and way too much to be just a fluke. A sharp spasm tightened her abdomen, much more intense than before, and Amelia doubled over in pain. God, no- not this time!
(Not sure how to do the italics on the last sentence in this forum - it's a direct inner thought)
This is my current WIP.
Great, Gina! I'd keep reading to find out what is happening to her.
Don't worry. I had the same issue with trying to italicize thought. With your lines, it was clear that "God, no-not this time" was Amelia's thought.
Powerful and heart breaking.
"I've made a list," Tilda told her dead husband and dead daughter.
First line from my short story, "Why Not," published in The Raven's Muse, Issue 4, March 2025.
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/ea43504c2e.html
Marie, after seeing your engaging first line I read your story and was captivated. Narrative: vivid and suspenseful (with height of Tilda's apartment nicely foreshadowing the conclusion). Last line: humorous and just right.
Hi Anna! Thank you so much for reading my "Why Not" story, and especially thank you for your positive comments!
That's a powerful intro.
Thank you, Lisa!
Amanda peered out the window, through the mist, down onto smoking chimneys and blackened roofs. Her excitement grew as the airplane descended.
Here I am, at last, in the land of the Potters-Beatrix and Harry.
I'm thinking sweet and exciting. Lovely.
And this is from my very first book The Girl in My Mirror:
People don't just go crazy all of a sudden, you know. It's not like they show it in the movies, where someone is absolutely normal and then they just suddenly snap, and "POW" - now they're crazy. It happens over a long period of time. You slowly unravel, and pieces of insanity start to seep through your normalness until all the regular you is gone and all that's left is plain ugly crazy. At least that's how it was for me.
Oh. Beautiful.
I'm never quite sure how much a "first line" entails. Below are the first two parpagraphs from a nightmare-inspired piece from 2012 I abandoned for fear of inadequacy...
The Doberman lunged, its lips peeled back to reveal slavering jaws dripping a yellowish goo. It’s pupils glowed as if a camera flash lit them, but there was nothing behind those eyes. Nothing that indicated the animal knew what it was doing.
Instinct had me ducking to avoid losing my face to those jaws. At the same time, I rammed the fingers of my right hand between the bones on the dog’s lower jaw, the elasticity of the skin allowing me to wrap them around the teeth so the animal bit down on its own flesh. I knew I couldn’t let it bite me. The infection that possessed it would kill me. Adrenaline gave me the strength to yank down on the jaw, pulling the head down and flipping the large black body over onto it’s back.
TERRIFYING. And we all feel that "fear of inadequacy" bit. But there's none of it showing here.
"If you're going to nag me, you're gonna have to marry me."
From The Sergeant's Unexpected Family Harlequin Special Edition
So cute!
Ha ha! This is a fun first line, Carrie.
Snicker
Lakshmi's hand, gently squeezing my flaccid penis, woke me. She lay on her side, head nestled in the crook of my shoulder, one leg thrown over mine, her favorite post-coital position. I smiled.
From "LoveMe Inc." by Matthew Rapaport, 2024
Ok, then! That'll get some attention!
Greatness always requires a measure of sacrifice, and in my case that meant climbing the endless spiral stairs of the skyspire loaded down with baskets like a common servant. No one would take me for anything other than another overworked drudge—not for a skinchanger, and certainly not for the Mirage, greatest thief in all the Five Realms.
- From my fantasy heist romance novella, The Dreamstone Thief
Until the moment I was catnapped, this job had easily been one of the single most boring thefts I’ve had the misfortune of agreeing to perform.
- From the sequel novel, another fantasy heist romance tentatively titled The Thieves of dar-Bashenti
Fun! Is this out anywhere? Sounds like my kind of novel.
Unfortunately these aren’t published anywhere (yet), but your comment truly made my day! 😊 Thank you so much, and thanks for the opportunity to share.
It was an uneasy afternoon on that lonely beach. Muggy. The seagulls were
missing, clouds bunched uncertainly, the rhythm of the sea was out of sorts with
the wind and sky. The smell of fish and salt hung heavy. The wind gusted this
way and that, lifting the odd shell or leaf while crabs played furtive hide and
seek in the waves.
Pretty!
That's an ominous, but gentle, setup.
I wasn’t the only one whose life changed forever the minute the echo of a loud bang sliced its way through the spines of the spruce and the arms of the tamarack. -Nancy Chadwick, author of Mercy Town, a story of the meaning of mercy and the power of forgiveness.
Wow. I'd read on to see where that goes.
The stench hit them first.
eek!
Just before he died, their father had two requests.
“Find that blonde woman and make her give you back my bed.”
Sister and brother looked at each other and wondered how they could possibly locate her, let alone persuade her or force her, after all those years.
“And teach her to cook porridge the way Mama Bear used to cook it.”
The two of them sighed and shrugged. Their father had always been irascible. He claimed it went back to an incident in his earliest youth.
“OK, Papa Bear.”
Their father lifted his head and growled. “Papa Bear—that was your Grandpapa Bear. Somewhere in this formerly furry chest there still beats the heart of Baby Bear. Now go and do what I told you to do.” He lay back and breathed his last.
Hi Anna! That second line hooked me. I want to know about that blonde woman and that bed!
That second line hooked me. I want to know about that blonde woman and that bed!
Fun take on a fairy tale.
High in the Salmon River Mountains of Idaho, Jennifer Frost squinted her eyes against flying dust the helicopter blades stirred up and shouted to the pilot, handing him a fat, white envelope. "Here's your payment. No matter what happens you don't come back for me until the two weeks are up. You got that?"
Opening line from Determined Hearts.
I'm definitely curious to find out more, Diana.
Yep, I'm hooked.
Super intriguing opening, Diana! Fish out of water...adventure...stubborn character. YES.
oh my gosh! I used to live there! I love it when someone mentions it. Stark, but beautiful place.
I hate the smell of hospitals. The over clean, antiseptic stench burns my nostrils and brings back bad memories. I spent way too many hours here when Emmy was sick. I don’t need any reminders.
From my short story The Waking Room.
Ouch. Yes. I know that feeling. Well captured.
Is this the coma book, Bob? Can't wait!!!
No, this was the opening like from a short story I wrote a few years ago when I was experimenting with 1st person present tense.
These are the first lines for my first draft of my current WIP, "Back to Denali (unedited)."
Rachel O’Rourke frowned at her reflection in the bedroom’s oval, free-standing mirror. She brushed a lock of long, straight, chestnut hair over her shoulder and spun away.
After she’d graduated from the University of Alaska with a degree in journalism a couple of years ago, she’d been thrilled to land her dream job as a reporter for The Fairbanks Star when it had started up. And she’d become good at her job too. With stories of importance to the public, she’d proven herself. But this?
And what is this story she's writing?
Margaret Rosa Delito should have known the day would come to a grim end. She had a sense about things like that, important things, life-and-death things.
She lived a deliberate life centered on one purpose--to erase the memories of her dark days.
Opening lines from ASYLUM, a dark suspense saga by Kathryn Orzech
60-sec. YouYube trailer:
https://youtu.be/iGU1HYvTMoo?si=0d2nB6JD9bVIAr91
Nice one, Kathryn!
That trailer is lovely. Definitely spooky!
I burst out of the woods, raced across our yard, then dashed to the house. After taking the porch steps two at a time, I charged into the mudroom adjacent to the kitchen. "Mama!" I called at the very moment the screen door slammed behind me.
Opening from my middle grade LITTLE PEARL - (13/y/o protagonist). A stand-alone sequel to LIBERTY BISCUIT.
I love the youth and movement in this opener, Melanie. And that you brought it to us right away. Brava!
Thank you, Ellen, Jenn, Jenny, Lisa, and Lynette for this Spring gift, and for sharing your opening lines. I look forward to reading everyone else's. 🙂
From my YA Fantasy WIP Chosen of the Moon:
Siobhan Bla’h Eithne refused to be a banshee like her mother. That was absolute.
She stepped into Nightshade Thicket, her path to and from school ever since she was a faeryling. Sparkles of light twinkled at her from the thicket’s canopy. A misty breeze wrapped around Siobhan as the Wood Guardians greeted her with a whispered rustling of leaves.
“Hello,” she replied absent-mindedly, and continued along the path, her gray cloak dragging dead leaves and twigs behind her. Not that there’s anything wrong with banshees, she mused. It’s the Cinn-gans that are the problem.
(Sorry for the lack of italics with Siobhan's thoughts. The site wouldn't let me italicize even as a cut and paste.)
Lovely! I'm fascinated by what she will become.
Thank you, Lisa. 🙂
Actually, I'm editing and editing and editing, so I'll share the first line from my first novel:
Dismounting, Riparia Dellbane sprinted to the contorted body in the desolate street, each raindrop on its seared flesh hissing its contempt for her powerlessness.
Trust in the Forgotten, Book 1 of The Kovenlore Chronicles, a romantasy adventure on the World of Ontyre.
Ooo, that really reeled me in.
Thank you.
You've got a lot of subtext going on here and I want to read more!
Thank you.
Whoa! Hooked for certain!
According to Native American tradition,
the consequences of choices
made by ancestors in one generation
reverberate for seven generations.
From Meadowlark Songs: A Motherline Legacy, due out next month!
Congratulations on the book coming out! And that sounds like a fascinating start!
This is fascinating, Joy. Thanks for sharing this with us.
I and Loretta Take Some Trips:
Time Traveling with the Rensaliers of Renselaer County
(And We Save History from Itself)
I don’t write so good, so you’re going to have to excuse me. I’m no Eisenhower in the brain department, either, but no one’s cheated me in quite some time, so I guess I’m doing okay. My wife Loretta is the brains of the outfit, that’s for sure. She’s as smart as a whip. I and you have never met, so I’ll prove it to you instead of you having to take my word for it.
This is a completely intriguing opening, Bob. Well done!
Thanks very much, Jenny. I like your writing and have always appreciated your insights.
Captain Stark, sitting in a lifeboat, thought it was appropriate time to inspect its safety features as his command, the cruise ship Joyful Sovereign with crew and passengers still aboard, slowly sank beneath the ocean waves.
Fictional short story. A work in progress.
Woah. That's... wow.
I'm worried for the passengers on that ship, and I'm not happy with that Captain. Great opening. It says a lot with just a few words!
I like it, James!
So many great first lines there!
Here is the first line from my current WIP:
Jazz closed her eyes and breathed through the moment of foreboding that proceeded every therapy session since …
Nice start to catch us in under a sentence!
I love knowing I'm going to be in on some therapy from the first line, Sandy!
Oooh Sandy, I feel that foreboding.
In the coal mining town of Shakhty, a wedge of humanity lying somewhere between the Groshevka River and the Donetsk mountain ridge, dawn struggles against the darkness. Except for the faint clickety-clack of a train thumping along in the distance, silence stretches across the slivering knives of tall grass and disappears behind a capacious copse of conifers. It is still too soon for nature’s whirs and chirps. Too soon for the cacophony of cawing crows. It is too soon and yet it is too late. It is too late because even before life can be born anew death has taken his due.
From just behind the veil of trees a desperate rustle and a muffled scream shatter the predawn peace. Startled sparrows screech skyward in a flurry. An indiscernible figure, cloaked in a shadow, straddles a now motionless small body. His mouth drips globs of blood. His chest heaves, ready to explode from the extreme exertion, his breath apparent by the clouds of vapor rapidly billowing from his gaping lips. Strings of sparse wet hair drip droplets of sweat onto the tip of his nose and splatters against the pallid flesh of the peasant girl beneath him.
EEEK. This is going to appeal to a very specific genre of readers - as do most stories - and I'm fascinated to see where you go next.
First line of the tiny prologue for Pride's Children: NETHERWORLD, second volume of the trilogy:
…Fascination with how celebrities mate, marry, and break up runs rampant in the decadent American culture.
---
An excerpt from The New Yorker which frames the trilogy,
The story of two high-powered actors and a disabled writer continues from PURGATORY.
That sets the mood perfectly.
Intriguing opening, Alicia!
The gates rattle along their track and slam closed with a clang.
- A Stranger to Kindness, Kate Larkindale
Wonderful sounds in here with the rattle, slam, and clang. Great job, Kate!
Kate - that's an interesting setup. Now I want to know what sort of gates!
"No one could blame him for the first death, but that was cold comfort; after all, the whole chain of events began with a decision he never should have made."
From "Hardly Even Rich - a Short Story" by Dennis Canfield
https://www.amazon.com/Hardly-Even-Rich-Short-Story-ebook/dp/B07F3QD6Y5
Who could not keep reading after that opening line! Good one, Dennis! And I'm happy to say that I read the whole excellent story 🙂
Thanks Marie!
Wonderful opener, Dennis!
What a start! Definitely something to continue!
Jim’s blood curled into Remi’s awareness like incense, a thread of aroma that coiled and wrapped around his mind, wrenching at the core of what he was. It wasn’t just hunger. It was yearning. A primal ache in his marrow that demanded satisfaction. Blood called to him like a siren song, promising ecstasy and power.
I love the "curling like incense." But my favorite is that last line. That's solid power!!
Thanks Jenny, my wife helped me with that metaphor.
I love how you've made it clear what genre we're in.
Thanks Lisa, my editor was all about getting all that in on the first page.
Evocative writing. It curled and wormed it's way into my thoughts, too.
Thanks Lynette! Thats very gratifying!
This is the opening lines of the prologue of my novel: Neon Skies and Misread Stars
10 Nov 1987
Little John Carter sat on the floor of Grandmother’s place, enraptured by the TV. He had his Thundercats shirt, was eating his fruit roll-up, and had been expecting his cartoons—nothing could match the fury of a kid denied his cartoons. It was almost time for Silverhawks. Instead, Tom Brokaw was talking all about what President Reagan was doing about the alien ships that had come and what they were doing over the oceans.
Really great sense of place here, Andrew. Plus, it opens on my birthday (first year of college), so I probably felt it even more. 🙂
Thank you so much! Funny coincidence about the dates! Since this is an alternate history/cyberpunk novel this is pretty much the date when the timelines diverged.
Alien ships? Love the juxtaposition of the very unexpected.
Thank you!
The Duck in the Seat Cushion - coming of age/mid-20th century historical.
My mother was a war bride from Paris. When Dad’s unit came in as part of the liberation, she must have seen this big, blond Methodist farmer — a galoot from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma — and thought: I want me a piece of that. Or whatever the hell the equivalent is in French.
But I don’t think she quite realized just what she was getting herself into.
Marvelous opening! I love that you conveyed the POV characters voice so clearly.
Oh, thank you! MJ Tanner (the MC) would not be denied. 🙂
Great sense of backstory that's clearly going to become critical.
Bella Fortunati was not your ordinary book gal.
Oooh... now I want to know what's different about her!
I like it, Denise!
Chance McCord tipped back his hat with a thumb and lifted his weary gaze to the mountains ahead. He set his saddle on the roadside to take a moment's break from walking. In the past half hour, storm clouds had amassed over the Tetons, staining the sky a violent shade of purple. Thunder rolled across the valley, setting a nearby herd of Angus steers to lowing and a jackrabbit scurrying for cover. In a minute, it would pour buckets.
Opening from Chance's Return, a Wild Rose Press release on April 16.
Great scene setting in Texas! I can both see and feel this.
From my WIP "Careless Sheep"
A full moon lit the evening, casting shadows across the trimmed lawn. All was quiet. All was calm, for the moment.
You got me with the "for the moment." I'd read on!
You had me at the title!
Hosea 2:5-6, Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace.
I open the front door to find a policeman looking straight at me with a piece of paper in his hand. I’m in shock.
Blow Me Over With A Feather by Caroline Sherouse
Nice. I'm anxious to see what's on that piece of paper. Is it what caused the shock or something else?
From my (still in draft) Fantasy:
"Looking up to the underside of a soaring dragon always made Giordano smile. Especially when the dragon above him was his own dragonheartbond."
I love dragons!!!
“Ow!” Katerina Mancini jerked away from the wiry young man trying to make an unfinished designer gown fit her obviously not-a-designer-model figure.
Opening line from "Dream On!" -- the second contemporary, later-in-life romance novel in Dana Michaels' "Dreams" series (now under construction).
Lots of good story information in that opening line. 🙂
The resistance Chance feels tells him he has gone far enough.
First line: Gresly Portage, Vince Nakovics
The day before the war, there were no such things as Vampires.
Before they attacked, we didn't know Vampires existed. Not outside of horror novels, late-night movies, and our collective nightmares.
Ursula watched the flood of refugees passing the workshop window, fleeing south from the Russian advance. The thought of a once proud nation relegated to refugee status was saddening, but she was determined to stay and fight; to the death if need be. The Führer had trained her for just such a time and she was determined not to fail him.
"Rudolf, I should like it if you were to stand for Parliament," my brother Robert remarked casually.
We were walking toward the house, having finished playing several combative sets of lawn tennis.
I could not have been more startled. He had said it in the same even tone he might have used in requesting another tea biscuit.
RETURN TO ZENDA, sequel to THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1894) work in progress releasing on my Patreon page.
June tugged at the ribbon on her bodice. “This dress is a disaster!”
Opening from A WALTZ BEFORE MIDNIGHT (The Lost Slipper Society, book one), historical romance
From my next cozy mystery:
“You know you’ll be sorry.” The overheard words were a missile aimed at someone, with venom.
I felt a slight shudder, then heard a change in the whine of the plane's engines.
Slowly, Samantha comes to her senses, and the first thing she’s aware of is the unbearable pain in every inch of her body. As if her limbs are ripped apart and her insides pulled out, every fiber of her body screams with excruciating pain. Her throat and chest are burning, and she struggles to breathe. Gasping for air, liquid gurgles in her throat and mouth. Without the strength to cough or spit, she pushes the bitter, viscous liquid with her tongue and lets it drip out of her mouth. The cold, wet air makes it even harder to breathe. Every breath she takes is a chunk of icy lead crushing into her lungs, and something heavy and gooey holds down her sore, burning eyelids. Unable to open her eyes, she wonders if she has lost her sight.
Jenny, your opening accomplishes what it’s supposed to: hook readers so that they have to keep reading.
Well done.
First ever manuscript.
"Hopelessness and boredom should never be mixed. The result creates entertainment in the most mundane things."
I'm thinking of changing "result" to "concoction."