In the beginning

Uncle Jim said, a good beginning would have a character in a place (and a time, perhaps) with a problem.

You can do that with a full first chapter. Or you can nail it in the opening paragraph or even sentence.

Your challenge here is to come up with an orginal opening that set the premise of your story. You can do it with a chapter or a paragraph or sentence. Be creative and original. Extra bonus for short sentence.

Use one for your written story, or a WIP you're working on, or an idea of a story you're playing with. The bottomline is give us something that would actually become part of your story.

Ok, I'll start. This is from a short WIP I'm working on:


David Canon locked the restaurant's gates for the last time, checking it twice, and reminded himself: let it go.

It was a grim but inevitable realization: this was not alcoholics anonymous, but some kind of board meeting he had inadvertently wandered into.

Her gaze vacillated between the winning lottery ticket she clenched in her hand and the gun pointed directly at her nose.

I already knew how much your mind becomes focused when a gun is pointed at you. Before this very moment however, I had never considered how focused it becomes when you are the one with the gun.

Normally the congregation paid attention to the preacher when he thumped his bible on the pulpit. This morning his booming voice accompanied the thumping. "It says here in this book that Man is the image of God himself. Man is the one who has dominion over all the earth. Man is the pinnacle of creation!"

But this morning, the attention of most of the congregation was firmly fixed on the narthex doors as the alien walked through them into the sanctuary.

He awoke in a stew of mud and blood, rain pelting his naked body. Corpses and spent weapons of war lay strewn side by side like wreckage across the open field. He began to wonder where he was, and how he had gotten here, but this was swept from his mind as he put voice to an even more urgent realization.

"Who am I?"

Mine's from a short I wrote ages ago and still like:

I was 15 years old to the day when I learned the real story of how Moe Jensen lost his fingers.

Being the niece of an Evil Overlord is not quite the Sunday morning picnic it might appear to be.

There's a good reason why instruction manuals for shower radios were invented.

Lucifer stared at the glowing sword. he gingerly grasped it, and pulled it from the shattered stone. now, he tought, now i can show them i was right all along. i can change the world.

Betrayal makes us do strange things.

Drell stared out the window absent-mindedly as he sharpened the head of his spear, watching rain fall heavily on the soon-to-be bloodied harbour.

In the beginning...

Hell was more comfortable than I expected.

Re: In the beginning...

Here's a couple.

1.
Exactly one hour after she hung up the phone, Dian’s doorbell rang. She picked up the check and the coupon before she opened the door.

2.
The evening sun stained the underbellies of the clouds gold. The carriage stopped at the tree line just west of Sulward Keep. A lone rider leading another horse rode nearby.

3.
Atona burned.

4.
Geraldine Owens washed her hands in the office restroom before returning to work. She examined her reflection in the mirror, pleased with the fact that she had been losing some weight recently. She turned to leave and saw Donna come in.

“You know, Geri,” she said, “people would like you better if you weren’t so fat.”

“And people’d like you if you weren’t so hateful.” Quick with comebacks, huh, Geri? Doesn’t take away the hurt though.

--------

Um. OK. So that's more than a couple.

~Jen

Re: In the beginning...

This is an opening from one of my WIPs. I still have yet to decide if I shall keep it.

The night's weight seeped from around the Turbo-24 Superstore as Madison Bradley stepped from the employee door. She tensed feeling its threatening nature. Glancing around, her hand dug in the bottom of her purse until she heard the familiar click of her long nails on the can of pepper spray.

Actually I edited while I typed it out. I like it better and it gave me some story twist ideas. Makes me feel like this :head this :jump and this :rollin all at the same time. Rough rough drafts...who knew?

Re: In the beginning...

From a piece of fan-fic I did:

Wesley leans slightly to the left against the bookshelf on the back of the wall, studying a leather-bound book in his hand. Atleast, it's assumed to be leather as much as it is assumed that he's studying the book.

Click to expand...

www.satans-toady.net/wnw/teeteringonbeautiful.html

From my latest WIP, linked in lj below:

Atticus Constantine was such a bright young child. A bright child born to darkness.

Click to expand...

Re: In the beginning...

Her hearting pumping wildly as she sat the basket down on the doorstep, Molly ran behind the car and peeked as the old man opened the door. "Ma", he hollered, "we got another basket." As he picked up the basket and closed the door, Molly said in a mostly teenager like way, "YES!"

Re: In the beginning...

Stephen King is dead, but he doesn't know it yet.

Re: In the beginning...

A bit of fanfic here:

"Why do I always have to wait for that incompetent fool to rescue me?" Nell asked herself as the train whistle sounded in the distance.

I think, Ruth, it's because he appears to be the only rescuer in town.

That said, I think Nell could be a little more leary about the characters she meets.

The champagne tasted funny.

(First line of a murder mystery)

Annie:grin

The boy tasted funny.

(opening of a horror story)

The funny boy tasted.

[opening of a story about circuis cuisine.]

"I do not serve a patient master. It is because of his displeasure that i find myself here with you, sigh,and with time for the tale."

The story ends with the two tied spread eagle to posts in the desert, left to die.