Share your insanity: First lines

Sage · Nov 1, 2006

Last year we had a fun thread for first lines (we also had a contest for all sorts of things, including the best first lines). So what's the first sentence of your NaNo novel?

L M Ashton · Nov 1, 2006

Oh, what, you ask for first lines, but don't offer your own? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Fess up! Give it! Now! Or I'll steal all your ideas and use them myself! Or steal all your chocolate! Or, uh, something...

"You don't have to manhandle it, you know," screamed Charla.

Taken out of context, that can be so, uh, misleading.

TheIT · Nov 1, 2006

"When lurking on rooftops, not getting caught on the building is just as important as not falling off," said Katrina as she watched Pounce struggle to free his tunic from the fangs of the stone gargoyle.

davids · Nov 1, 2006

Rebecca, a long sanguine creature who had chosen me among many, stood behind kneading the tightened muscles surrounding my shoulders as though they were a good slab of dough that had to be made right for baking.

Sarashay · Nov 1, 2006

The door is locked and bolted.

Sage · Nov 1, 2006

quidscribis said:
Oh, what, you ask for first lines, but don't offer your own? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! Fess up! Give it! Now! Or I'll steal all your ideas and use them myself! Or steal all your chocolate! Or, uh, something...

Oops, sorry. I was trying to decide whether my novel's first line counted, since I wrote it b4 NaNo, or if I should use the first line I wrote for NaNo, which is much less interesting. I've decided that the novel's first line is okay 'cuz some people might not actually write the first line on the first day. The first line is (sorry for those who have seen it before):

As the cold steel of the knife slipped between my ribs, I had only one thought: Oh, gods, this is going to create so much paperwork.

Rane · Nov 1, 2006

I hate my job today.

san_remo_ave · Nov 1, 2006

"You're father was broke, Margaret. There's no inheritance."

OK. So that's more than one sentence, but still....

dancingandflying · Nov 1, 2006

It was a dark and stormy night.

Yeah, I know, cliche, but all I could think of.
"Curiouser and curiouser!"
Alice.

Eveningsdawn · Nov 1, 2006

"There was nothing special about the way they spent August."

From Anthropology 101.

Dawno · Nov 1, 2006

“Quit shoving”

MarkN · Nov 2, 2006

"Fenn Tussock drooled as he shuffled quickly down the long stone corridor from the kitchens to the Minor Hall."

Oo, oo, can I share my "hook" too?

In a world of wizards, dragons, and heroes, one peasant had a gift that no one expected or understood.

He was a detective.

PattiTheWicked · Nov 2, 2006

"Death had no sense of common courtesy -- because if it had, Good Southern manners, gentility and breeding should have at least allowed for Dell to be on the job more than a week before he got his first homicide."

Tracey · Nov 2, 2006

Patti, I love your opening line. That's good stuff. Mine is:

"I just buried my wife." Not the most exciting of beginnings, but it will do.

MidnightMuse · Nov 2, 2006

Alex found himself at the edge of a cliff, dangling his toes over the crumbling, dirt-encrusted drop.

Tienci · Nov 2, 2006

NaNoWriMo 2006 first line

My first line is:

Alice knew the moment his heart stopped.

Sarita · Nov 2, 2006

Okay, the first line is:

It was too cold to go out today.

followed by:

Sean O’Malley decided to let the sheep fend for themselves.

“The sheep can’t fend for themselves, Sean.”

smiley10000 · Nov 2, 2006

Mine is too awful to post. It is long and convoluted and the internal editor is screaming to rewrite the first page but I say NO! Onwards and upwards we go...

:e2BIC:

10000

Forbidden Snowflake · Nov 2, 2006

His car was broken, he knew as much.

I err, no excuse

CACTUSWENDY · Nov 2, 2006

Until this morning Sandy Dusters’ life has proven to be full of lackluster events.

(You were expecting something full of intrigue.

Right? Sorry.)

akelsey333 · Nov 2, 2006

"Carly Wilson knew it was going to be a bad day long before she snagged her last pair of panty hose, ran out of chocolate, and accidentally summoned a demon in the children’s section of her bookstore."

larrypotter · Nov 2, 2006

There are some excellent first lines out there! I don't think mine is so great... but that doesn't matter; for Nano purposes your first line doesn't HAVE to be good! That said...

The ecologist C. Hart Merriam described driving from Phoenix, Arizona to the San Fransisco Peaks of Flagstaff, 120 miles to the north, to traveling from the equator to the top of the North Pole.

Keep writing, everyone!

allion · Nov 2, 2006

Here's my deathless prose:

Eleni pulled her sweater around her shoulders.

Yep, a real classic in the making.

Karen

Soccer Mom · Nov 3, 2006

All the women in my family have psychic ‘gifts’ except for me.

Hey, I turned my IE off. So that's what you get.

fredfuller · Nov 3, 2006

I've already logged this in Newbies:

My wife never drank until she got to seminary.

Share your insanity: First lines

Supreme Guessinator

crazy spec fic writer

Infuriatingly Theoretical

Shut Up and Write

Supreme Guessinator

Duh. #winning

Back at it

Is it tea time yet?

Just Sing.

Shiny!

Altogether Ookie

Unleashing Hell.

Midnight Reading

Lost in the Land of Giants

carpe noctem

What do we do? We write...

I'm quite put out.

An old, sappy, and happy one.

Peace...

Character assassin

Crypto-fascist