Favorite Line of the Day - NaNo 2016

Status
Not open for further replies.

Maggie Maxwell

Making Einstein cry since 1994
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
11,681
Reaction score
10,337
Location
In my head
Website
thewanderingquille.blogspot.com
It's not NaNo without the best thread of all! Share you favorite lines from the day.

I'm still finding the voice of my characters, but so far, I'm fond of this exchange:

“Mm, mm, those clothes didn’t show half of him, didn’t they? Get me a piece of that, if he weren’t crazy,” Tishauna said. I whirled on her.

“You want to talk about someone else being crazy? Let’s talk about you carrying an illegal taser! What were you thinking?”

She pulled it out of her purse, and I snatched it out of her hand.

“I was thinking I’m a little black girl in a big damn city, boss. Ain’t going to apologize for wanting to defend myself.”
“Then take Tae Kwon Do or something!”
“Tae Kwon Do don’t make big guys drop like stiff boards. It’s funny.”
 

GeneBWell

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 28, 2016
Messages
186
Reaction score
55
Location
Indiana
From my Prologue (which kind of explains the background/nature of the world this story takes place in):

The humans hunted the weaker animals so they could eat them. The stronger animals hunted the humans so they could eat them. Everyone was eating everyone else. These were fearful times.
 

Mary Love

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 26, 2015
Messages
1,586
Reaction score
642
Omg, I love these both!

Maggie, I just started an opening sentence thread at the same time as you did this one. Hope we're not bumping into each other (too destructively anyway). ;)

Happy words peeps!
 

Maggie Maxwell

Making Einstein cry since 1994
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
11,681
Reaction score
10,337
Location
In my head
Website
thewanderingquille.blogspot.com
Oh, please, you had the Opening Sentence thread done well before I made this one. :) Besides, they're two very different topics. I think we won't be bumping heads too much. (personally because my opening sentence will likely never see the light of day XD This was not off to a good start.)
 

Sage

Currently titleless
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 15, 2005
Messages
64,560
Reaction score
22,360
Age
43
Location
Cheering you all on!
For now:
"Your new captain is inspecting the shuttles. I sent him there when I caught a whisper of some ill-begotten Youths planning a show in the middle of a hallway. Do you know how many codes you're violating?"

"Three, sir." I can't help myself sometimes.

"At least."
 

Carrie in PA

Write All The Words!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 25, 2006
Messages
1,942
Reaction score
1,078
Location
in my own little world
These two are my favorites so far.

This was it. Do or die. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. If she didn't get on that plane, she'd never go anywhere. She'd waste the rest of her life in that town, putting the final nail in the coffin of her dreams.

"Don't ever call your dreams stupid, Megan. Dreams are living, breathing things. You have to nurture them. Care for them. If you don't, they wither and die."
 

Dreity

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
1,031
Reaction score
180
Location
Upstate NY
Wandering dangerously close to excerpt territory with this. I promise future contributions will be shorter.

He was looking right at her with a proud father’s gleam, and, as usual, she was determined to see his puffed up expectations deflated where she was concerned.


“You know something, Aldrivanos?” said Prauver. “I like this plan. I like it a lot. More moving parts than anything we’ve done yet, but we’ve finally got the people to pull it off. The right people. People with a surplus of wits and dark and curlies both.”


Felisa deflected, “You should direct that glowing praise to Tigwyll.” Without diverting her gaze from the auction grounds, she tilted her head toward the man beside her. “It’s his plan.”


One would expect Tigwyll to make some noise in agreement, but the elven academic turned lead strategist for a rag-tag mercenary company had a perfectionist streak a mile wide. He merely grunted. “We can talk about how savvy it was if and when it works.”


Prauver chuckled. “Fair enough.” Felisa was hoping that would be the end of it, but she felt the leader’s eyes on her again. “Still, it was your call to go big with this. It was a good one.”


Like hells she would. “It wasn’t my call. It was a mutual decision.”


“A mutual decision inspired by your proposal. You’ll take the credit for that if I have to shove it down your throat.”
 

Engliman

In transatlantic accent hell.
Registered
Joined
Oct 15, 2016
Messages
32
Reaction score
7
Location
Joplin, MO
I quite liked this one.

Talbot fumbled with the car door and managed to tumble out right as his breakfast decided to have an encore.
 

AnnieColleen

Invisible Writer
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
4,355
Reaction score
1,391
Location
Texas
Most days, I'd shower. The true hot skin-stripping article, the kind that needs an ocean outside the door to supply.

(This amuses me more than it should because, well, she actually has an ocean outside the door.)
 

tiddlywinks

Chaser of Shineyyyy Plot Bunnies
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 7, 2014
Messages
9,424
Reaction score
3,719
Location
Trying to Remember Where I Stashed My Muse
Website
www.elainewitt.com
Ooh, I like this thread.

Here are my favorite bits today:

A glint of something, amusement perhaps, flickered in the Captain’s eyes. He leaned closer, as if daring her to make good on her threat.

Bloody bastard. Aurora bared her teeth, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

That was not a look of amusement.

“You stabbed me!”

“Well,” she said sweetly, “you should know better than to try and run yourself onto a sharp blade.”

Those all-too-kissable lips thinned. Then mouthed a rather unflattering suggestion as to where she could kiss him instead.

Cerberus bite her, but the man had a death wish.
 

meowzbark

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 22, 2012
Messages
1,188
Reaction score
142
Location
Arizona
This has potential.

Though the city was situated in a desert land, where clouds wandered into town from the sky-scrapping mountains as rarely as lost cattle, both clouds and cattle were herded back to their proper home before their presence disrupted the average citizen. If entire year passed between the heaven emptied the clouds, no one would think it unusual.
 

Mark Moore

Banned
Joined
Dec 22, 2011
Messages
1,041
Reaction score
39
Age
45
Location
Florida
November 1: two different exchanges from the same story.

First, a club manager is discussing pay with his new hire (the MC):

“It pays shit.”
“That's okay. Shit's more than I make now.”

Next, my MC has just incapacitated a disgruntled former employee that tried to kill the manager (she used her bottle from the drink that she was having at the time as a weapon):

“I'll call the police.”
“On their way!” Sandy [the bartender] called.
The manager looked at her and nodded.
“Well, I'm gonna go back to the bar and...get another drink.”
“Sandy, give the lady a drink – on me!”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
“Anytime. Well, I guess I'll just guard the suspect.”
“We got it, boss.”
Two large men – the club's bouncers – approached.
“Well, shit, I'm gonna get a drink, too.” The manager turned, walked back into his office, and closed the door.
 

A.E.Fisher

The first draft of anything is shit
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 18, 2016
Messages
110
Reaction score
20
Location
Canada
Website
jesuisley.com
no matter how many times you pictured your One True Love as a gorgeous tall, blonde man with cobalt blue eyes (are those a thing?) and muscles that would put the venerable Dwayne Johnson to shame, ultimately the cards will fall as they may.

It's actually not a love story.
 

hester

New year, new avatar.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2008
Messages
1,572
Reaction score
284
Location
On the edge.
When a paper gets you tossed out of school—hell, when a paper brings the cops to your door and earns you a bunch of psychiatric referrals—do you keep it at the top or bottom of the stack?
 
Last edited:

Sage

Currently titleless
Staff member
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 15, 2005
Messages
64,560
Reaction score
22,360
Age
43
Location
Cheering you all on!
"I'll check out your songs," Max is saying. "I owe you that."

"Love y'," I mumble.

Chapter 3
Three years later

Max Speed is the biggest jackass in the universe.
 

Mary Love

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 26, 2015
Messages
1,586
Reaction score
642
In the center the flag waited for him, furling softly like the sly eyelash of a flirtatious female.
 

CoffeeBeans

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 5, 2013
Messages
1,499
Reaction score
433
From Day 1, but probably the best of it...

“Is it supposed to burn this much?” I asked Scarlett, between grit teeth. The searing chemical smell made my nose run.
“How much is ‘this much’? Brush with a jelly fish at high tide? Getting snapped by bacon on the griddle?”
“Like ‘fell-asleep-in-the-beach-chair, lobster-red’ kind of hurt. With extra tingle.”
 

Maggie Maxwell

Making Einstein cry since 1994
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 21, 2013
Messages
11,681
Reaction score
10,337
Location
In my head
Website
thewanderingquille.blogspot.com
I grabbed a passing resident by the arm.
“If you can’t tell me the man in room 231 will have his IV removed and get discharged within the next hour, then I’m going to rip it out myself and drag him out of here, with permission or without.”
“Ma’am, I’m not-”
“I don’t care what you’re not. You work here. Make it happen.” I checked my phone’s clock. “You have until 1:18 to get me an answer. Fifteen minutes. Get moving.” And just because I’m an asshole in a rush, I added, “I’m a lawyer, you know.”
“Somehow, I could tell.”
 

eskay

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 4, 2015
Messages
129
Reaction score
17
Location
Seattle
“Hold on,” said the captain, redundantly.
 

Matt T.

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 24, 2016
Messages
614
Reaction score
102
Location
United States
“Fucking rich kids,” an exasperated male voice said, displaying all the maturity I expected our teachers to show when they thought no one was listening.
 

AnnieColleen

Invisible Writer
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
4,355
Reaction score
1,391
Location
Texas
There's no retreating from a wakened jawbone*. You drift slantwise, backwards away, but you keep eyes on it. Convince it -- so I was trained, so I tell you -- that you're leaving because you meant to.

I've never yet found such a maneuver to work with infirmarians.


*my so-creative name for a big, toothy species of fish.
 

CoffeeBeans

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 5, 2013
Messages
1,499
Reaction score
433
“Sorry.” I looked at my phone, unsure how to convey embarrassed excitement and mild horror in the most accurate series of emojis.

(I would personally go with blushing face - sunglasses - zippered lips, but Athena will have to decide for herself)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.