Favorite Line of the Day - NaNo 2016

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Sage

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There's nothing but stars out there, but even if I could look at a nearby star system and know its name, they're far off pinpricks in the night, like sparks that froze while falling from a blitzing wire.
 

chompers

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She screamed.
He screamed.
Everybody and the whole village ran into the room.
 

GeneBWell

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One of my favorite scenes I've written so far. The teacher and his student are banned from cooking due to law, so he has to teach her to cook using clay ingredients and fake stoves. She doesn't believe such teaching could ever work, and he shows her the power of imagination:

“Picture, if you will, that you are in the royal kitchens of the palace. I'm going to make a simple steak stir-fry. I turn on the stove, pour some oil into my wok... that's this wide and deep pot over here...” Basil said, and as he spoke he went through the actions. He prepared the ingredients, slicing everything up and adding it, each ingredient at a specific time. The whole time, he kept talking.

“Can you smell it? The sharp scent of the soy and ginger, the savory sizzling steak, the freshness of the vegetables as they begin to fry in the oil,” he said, his words were hypnotic. His movements were so practiced, so refined. His eyes were distant. He wasn't seeing the small workshop with the fake stoves and ingredients. He was there, in the palace. He was cooking the meal for real.

And Souffle could smell it. She could hear the snapping and hissing of the oil as he added each ingredient. She could see the steam wafting out of the wok. When Basil picked up the wok and shook it expertly to toss the ingredients, she could see the vibrant greens of the vegetables, the oily dark meats soaked in soy sauce. She felt her mouth start to water.

Then the cooking was done and Basil poured the contents of the wok out onto a large plate and slid it in front of Souffle. She could see the finished dish on the plate. She could smell it. It looked good enough to eat. The smell of it made her stomach rumble.

But then she blinked, and it was gone. The plate in front of her was full of clay cut into various shapes and sizes. The sauce she had seen as oily black soy was just water. The only smell was the earthy scent of clay.

“What do you think?” Basil asked, his eyes twinkling. “Want to learn how to do that?”
 

Sage

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"I'm scared of the spaces between stars. The stars just prove that those spaces are there."
 

AnnieColleen

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He gulped air as though it were him out there and stranded, knowing the air wouldn't last to see him home.
 

meowzbark

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“Asking questions invites questions,” he remarked.
 

paddismac

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Getting into excerpt territory with this one, but... :e2shrug:

Sophie has suspicions about her Aunt Laurel's ventriloquist dummy.


Sophie reached out to right him, but curiosity got the better of her. She sat the dummy on her lap and began a careful examination. She opened and closed his hinged, spring-loaded mouth, then trailed her hands over his body, squeezing here and prodding there. She reached under the back of his jacket, as she'd seen Laurel do, and located the rod inside that moved his head. Her fingers found a system of levers and cords that caused his eyes to swivel and blink with a soft click. Simple mechanics. No battery pack. Nothing at all extraordinary to the touch. Finally she undid several buttons on his shirt and peered inside, then cautiously reached down the front of his pants. It was a doll. Just a doll — and not even anatomically correct.

"Here we go. Just what the doctor ordered," Laurel said as she rounded the corner. In her hand was a small bowl of steaming porridge, generously topped with melted butter and sugar.

"Oh, you didn't need to do that. I'm really not hungry," Sophie said, setting Humperdinck aside and scrambling to her feet.

Laurel shook her head with a grin. "Don't be silly, it's not for you." She placed the bowl next to the door and added a tiny silver spoon. Lifting Humperdinck from the floor, she gave him a quick kiss and a squeeze that pressed his face into the deep v of her neckline.

Sophie blushed at the sound of a low, stifled groan.
 

Jason

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The last hint of twilight sputtered below the horizon, enveloping the planet in darkness.
 

Lillian_Blaire

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(It's nothing profound, but every word was a fight today.)

We lay in silence, catching our breath, looking everywhere but at each other.
 

Sage

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"Stop dawdling like a tourist. When you're here, you're my boyfriend. Just stay right here and hold my hand." He opens his mouth, and I put a mechanical finger in front of his lips. "Shut it."

"You know, your finger has no power over my speech, right?"

"Fine, go off on your own and get your creds stolen off you. Or better, your balls. I bet there's a market for celebrity balls."
 

Mary Love

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“You! You got us into this mess.” His dark eyes held a humor that did little to refute her accusation. “When we get out of here, we’re going to turn your kidneys into Krishfest cookies.”
 

tiddlywinks

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Mwaahahahah, I love Hades in this story (for context, he's also known as Davey Jones):

“Ooh, comparing me to a Norseman.” Hades grinned. “You’ve balls on you, boy. That’s why I like you.”

“The favor of a God. My life is now complete.” Idiocy, given [Hess] didn’t want to go to the Locker anytime soon, but if Hades had come to collect him, he may as well go down fighting. And words were all he had, seeing as how Endel had relieved him of his cutlass above deck when Aurora barked at him.

Damn stubborn wenches who refused to see reason.

The God laughed. “Save your ire. You’ll need it.”

“For what?” Hess muttered.

There was the wicked smile. “What, indeed. Tell me, Hesperus, how badly do you want to help Aurora?”

“You know the answer to that.”

That smile widened. And a glint of silver materialized in the God’s fingers.

Cerberus’s balls.

The key.

“Then what would you say if I told you I was here to break you out?”
 

Dreity

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Great Daughter Natalya wrinkled her nose. “No blood or innards everywhere, but that burnt hair smell is going to linger. Bet a whole field of maiza that demonic horn-blowing was all you too.”


Tigwyll made a taciturn shrug.


“For someone with no dirt under their nails, you’re one grim motherfucker.”
 

paddismac

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"I fail to see how three lovely young women and one limp dicked old fart constitutes a sausage fest, but I'm nothing if not open minded. Shall we go?"
 

AnnieColleen

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(Snippets from a letter from my MC to her daughter, long after the events of the story.)

I suppose, now that my freedom of movement is restored, I may just find time to step over to the House and ask the Householder to sequester me with the other antique documents, as it seems my value now consists in (1) the information I carry, and (2) the great age and authenticity of the medium.
...
When next you can spare time from flitting among the aether, your poor old mother would be glad of a sight of you, to stave off relapses.
 

Mary Love

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(Loving my female 2ndry character. Afraid she's overshadowing my MC, but don't care.)

His eyes remained narrowed, expression unchanged. “I’m beginning to think it was a terrible idea, rescuing you.”
“Finally. Something we agree on, Prince.”
 
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Anna Spargo-Ryan

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Maybe this one - the titular character coming into the world.

Graham had watched from ‘the business end’. He stroked Emily’s legs and fetched damp towels and said reassuring things. He opened the window and closed the window. He shook the obstetrician’s hand. He said, ‘would you look at that!’ and then said it again, more urgently, with a squeak at the end. Jove came sliding out just after four, made a polite bleating sound, and promptly slept for three hours. His mother — his new, awed, terrified mother — let her fingers rest on his downy red head, and the miniature ribcage he’d been born with moved up and down and she was reassured.
 

Lillian_Blaire

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My favorite line(s) of the day:

Our whole lives together exist as a stolen moment in the middle of a hectic day, when no one notices we are missing. All we have, all we are, is whatever we create in the confines of this twelve-by-twelve-foot metal box, full of mildewed carpet and dank, stale air.
 

Mary Love

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Next to him, Envy hissed. “Hey. That hurt!”
“Watch out for the knifes,” Roe called, not taking his eyes off the blade slashing at his torso.
“We thank you, Prince Obvious.”
 
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Sage

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Basically my characters are riding hovering Segways:

The carts don't like the unevenness of the tracks, but once we get them balanced over the thin strip of metal floor alongside the track, their hovering stabilizes. "Lean forward to move forward, right to move right, left to move--"

"Left?" Max finishes for me.

"And back slows you or stops. Don't lean too far in either way or you'll tip it."
 

paddismac

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Sophie prowled the room like a caged tiger, her eyes never leaving the dummy's smiling face. With a frustrated growl she grabbed him up from the chair, jammed her hand into the hollow of his back, and gave him a vicious shake.

"God damn you, you smug son of a bitch, talk to me! I know you can hear me."

Humperdinck's head swiveled languidly to face his attacker and his brow raised with amusement. "Surely you don't kiss your mother with that mouth."
 

Anna Spargo-Ryan

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This, I think (love a good Nanowrimo list!):

There was nothing he loved more than coming home to his son. He had so many things to teach him: how to bounce a football (he would have to learn this himself before he could teach it, but it was on the list), how to change the light bulbs in the high part of the hallway (with Mr Henderson from 3C’s step-ladder; in the event of Mr Henderson’s death, forge a note in the will bequeathing the step-ladder to the occupants of 3A, namely, Graham and Jove), how to speak to women (quietly, and with your full attention), how to record a new message for the answering machine (retain the manual; follow instructions therein), how to catch mosquitos (the buzzing in your ear is always a fraction of a second behind the position of the actual mosquito; always attempt to catch it in the space it will move to instead), how to make bacon and eggs (the non-stick pan, but never with olive oil; or, the stainless steel pan, but with the stuff from the spray can), how to drive a manual car (light on the clutch, heavy on the smugness), and especially, especially, how to love Emily Howard (gently, respectfully, verbally; with biscuits in the afternoon; with unexpected cups of black tea; with posies of jonquils but never daffodils; with broadsheet newspapers; with afternoons listening to her explain things hanging in art galleries; with holding on to the television remote; with a dark chocolate individually wrapped; with good books; and with a sleep-in on Sundays).
 

DavidBrett

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Horace Rathebone II knew every inch of his workhouse like it were his own - some would say struggling - body. His office was, naturally, the brain from which all orders and matters flowed. The kitchens and dining hall the stomach, feeding the hundreds of "cells" that kept the body alive and giving them the energy needed (and not a scrap more) to get through the day's work. The factory floor was the steadily beating heart, pumping life-giving purpose through the otherwise unwelcome and useless rabble of Lodnon's streets, with which they could work harder to produce something of substance and, more important still, profit for him.

Yes, he knew his workhouse well, and would sit back in his ample armchair, puffing on a cigar the size of a blood sausage (and equally as appealing) as he listened to the steady, wonderful symphony of his wealth increasing at the expense of the poor's well-being.

But not today. No, today was different, although how he couldn't quite place. The trouble came from the factory floor, of that much he could discern from the sounds alone. Gone were the usual background collection of groans and gripes, and in their place was ... what on earth was that?

Was ... was it laughter? And clunking​?
 

Mary Love

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(Can't get enough of their dialogue! Because of that, a good bit of it will have to go, *wah!* but for now: )

“Its because you don’t have enough money isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Maybe princes don’t like to mingle with common folk?”
“Hmm.”
“We suppose princes wouldn’t have a sweet tooth like normal people.”
“Hush.”
“Admit it, you just want to find a grown-up place where you can get donkey smashed.”
“What?”
“Where you can have your pick of skinny girls in skimpy clothes.”
“Envy.”
“Because princes get to have their pick of skinny girls, probably three or four in one night. Pretty skinny girls.”
He spun around. “Holy hell beans girl, you beat all.”
 
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