Favorite lines you've written

Ellis Clover · Aug 20, 2018

You stand at the gate behind a bouquet of flowers as vivid as a parachute, a big, beautiful bunch of regret, and as your eyes peep over the top you see something in mine that startles you.

‘What?’ you say, and your voice is heavy and hard like a wooden surface, like I haven’t prepared for you in every usual way – hair, skin, the impersonal scent of a glass bottle – despite the fragile hour, despite never imagining I’d see you again.

Barbara R. · Aug 21, 2018

This is from my last book, A DANGEROUS FICTION.

Two women are talking about the younger woman's husband, who died recently. The younger woman has learned that he had several affairs and is upset.

Older woman: "What do you care where he stuck his dick? He worshipped the ground you walked on!"
Younger woman: "Only because he walked on it too."

ShaunHorton · Aug 21, 2018

"Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, underscored with the tones of a bullfrog on a microphone."

Yonathanasefaw · Aug 24, 2018

"I am Chubby."

Vida Paradox · Aug 25, 2018

“Elytra blinked owlishly after hearing that.” I said, narrating the inside of her head. “She really couldn’t believe what she’s seeing now. Artificial Intelligence? OP? What’s that? She has never heard of that term in all her life.” I smirked a little at the shocked look on Elytra’s face.

indianroads · Aug 25, 2018

Every time I see the title of this thread I'm tempted to say that 'THE END' is certainly high up among my favorite things to write.

From today:
Those without secrets hide nothing, and those that manipulate truth always do so for nefarious ends.

starrystorm · Aug 27, 2018

Diemond's the antagonist. The door in your hand is a threat. The MC's trapped on an elevator.

I raised my head. My heart jumped through my throat, leaving my body cold. The eight attraction posters had changed to faces of Diemond, each with a word scrawled across the top in a bloodlike ink.
Hello. I. Am. Right. Here. Shade. Pryde.
The words changed.
Get. Ready. For. The. Door. In. Your. Hand.
They changed again, only this time taking up the entire poster.
SHADE. PRYDE. NEVER. GETS. SCARED. NEVER. GETS. SCARED.

Alessandra Kelley · Aug 27, 2018

The hour came and she felt the door open a second before it did.

As Rivka pivoted to face it her senses flowed through the space, the flatness and hard angles of the walls and ceiling, movement paths around the furniture, the channels of action and activity, the labyrinth. The maze itself shifted around her, unseen broad steps leading down.

The vampire stood with its hand on the knob, seeming to gaze at her from a few seconds in the future as well as the past. It was tall and pale and thin and hairless, wearing, rather incongruously, a stylish lightweight trench coat over loose silky trousers which moved gently in the air currents.

“Doctor Jacobi,” it said in a velvety contralto with odd harmonics, in English with an undefinable accent. Its limbs were too long, too thin, spidery. A horror stood at the threshold.

“That’s me,” Rivka said, flat, tense.

“Good evening,” it said, shifting its weight forward.

It was moving, No, it –

The vampire’s past and future selves flanked it, seemingly aware of each other, a triple grace of dancers shaping the room, the air, possibilities. Its garments seemed to probe the air, almost floating. Rivka shifted her weight, astonished.

It was beautiful. It –

No! It was hideous! A predator with a predator’s grace, that was all.

starrystorm · Aug 28, 2018

Alessandra Kelley said:
The hour came and she felt the door open a second before it did.

As Rivka pivoted to face it her senses flowed through the space, the flatness and hard angles of the walls and ceiling, movement paths around the furniture, the channels of action and activity, the labyrinth. The maze itself shifted around her, unseen broad steps leading down.

The vampire stood with its hand on the knob, seeming to gaze at her from a few seconds in the future as well as the past. It was tall and pale and thin and hairless, wearing, rather incongruously, a stylish lightweight trench coat over loose silky trousers which moved gently in the air currents.

“Doctor Jacobi,” it said in a velvety contralto with odd harmonics, in English with an undefinable accent. Its limbs were too long, too thin, spidery. A horror stood at the threshold.

“That’s me,” Rivka said, flat, tense.

“Good evening,” it said, shifting its weight forward.

It was moving, No, it –

The vampire’s past and future selves flanked it, seemingly aware of each other, a triple grace of dancers shaping the room, the air, possibilities. Its garments seemed to probe the air, almost floating. Rivka shifted her weight, astonished.

It was beautiful. It –

No! It was hideous! A predator with a predator’s grace, that was all.

Beautiful description. The last part made me laugh.

Summer89 · Aug 28, 2018

There was a time when I was his everything. He wanted me in every way he could. He tried to own me and he almost succeeded. See my dear diary there is one thing I haven´t told a soul. When I was nineteen years old I tried to get out. I tried to leave, but in his pain he got creative. He told me a lie that to this day I still don´t know if it is a true or not. That lie got me to stay. When the years past he noticed that because of that lie he would never own my heart but there was one thing he did own, one thing much stronger than the heart’s desire, my conscience.

Vida Paradox · Aug 28, 2018

The Student smiled a little. “Okay, enter the tree. Don’t rush and don’t sneak if you’re going through the front door. Be a local neighbor asking for a sugar.” He said calmly as they entered tree in front of them.

Inside the tree is a huge wooden dome-like arena with a green dragon the size of two fully grown bear sitting on a pile of gold. It gazed at the trio with its glowing red eyes while rubbing its precious gold with its black razor sharp claws. Its scales vibrate ever so gently whenever they make a movement.

“Now what?” Fabio asked. “Ask for sugar?”

kkbe · Aug 29, 2018

Ellis Clover said:
You stand at the gate behind a bouquet of flowers as vivid as a parachute, a big, beautiful bunch of regret, and as your eyes peep over the top you see something in mine that startles you.

‘What?’ you say, and your voice is heavy and hard like a wooden surface, like I haven’t prepared for you in every usual way – hair, skin, the impersonal scent of a glass bottle – despite the fragile hour, despite never imagining I’d see you again.

While the POV initially took me aback, I was quickly charmed by the amazing writing: the bouquet is a 'beautiful bunch of regret;' the voice is 'heavy and hard like a wooden surface;' the hour is 'fragile.'

Of course it is.

I love this, Ellis.

indianroads · Sep 2, 2018

Still working through the first draft of Desperation. This is a little rough, but I think it's got legs.

Earl sat in his barracks office and stared dejectedly at a stack of papers waiting at the corner of his desk. He just couldn’t keep his mind on requisition forms and personnel reports; try as he might, his thoughts kept returning to the coming civil war. They had been practicing phalanx drills for months, and yet they still weren’t ready. Primitive hand to hand combat made warfare too real. It was one thing to sit up on a wall and fire his L-80 into a distant crowd of faceless strangers, but stabbing a man in the stomach then staring into his eyes as his guts spilled out on your boots was an entirely different experience.

War was always a nasty business, but it occurred to him that politics was much worse simply because it was dispassionate rather than visceral. At a deeply fundamental level, it felt immoral and unjust that a group of people who had never encountered violence and death first hand should calculate kill ratios and make accounting decisions that would destroy lives, leave partners alone, and children without parents.

There was nothing to be done about it though, that was simply the way human civilization had developed. Regardless of the inevitability of the coming war, he was angry but knew he shouldn’t be. Evolution was really just a crap shoot, a roll of the dice that too often favored the most violent and least ethical among us.

“Platoon leaders and senior officers, report to the military center immediately,” his com chip murmured.

“Well boys,” he said to the impatient forms. “I guess you’ll have to fill yourselves out while I’m gone.” He stood up, then paused a moment to glance about the room. “Huh. Well, I suppose it’s possible that the General is pissed off enough that I won’t be back… in that case, good riddance.”

Anna Spargo-Ryan · Sep 3, 2018

A bit from this historical thing I'm beating away at:

What could she tell him? Her father’s fierce voice shouting her mother’s name. The sister who’d paved the way for her, carried her own bastard baby but found herself married, respectable. Cath, drinking whisky in the front bar of some hotel, soldiers with wandering hands. A holding cell, just for the night, a public nuisance. Money her mother pressed into her hand. Trying to fold up the empty parts of herself, the still-open places her body was broken.

‘I’m an orphan,’ she said.

‘How’s that,’ he said. ‘I’m an orphan, too.’

Both liars, and they knew it. Trading their currency.

Ellis Clover · Sep 6, 2018

kkbe said:
While the POV initially took me aback, I was quickly charmed by the amazing writing: the bouquet is a 'beautiful bunch of regret;' the voice is 'heavy and hard like a wooden surface;' the hour is 'fragile.'

Of course it is.

I love this, Ellis.

Thank you so very much, kkbe! Apologies for only seeing your lovely comment now!

kkbe · Sep 8, 2018

Ellis Clover said:
Thank you so very much, kkbe! Apologies for only seeing your lovely comment now!

You're welcome, Ellis. I just read your excerpt again, just for g.p.

Speaking of which...

Anna Spargo-Ryan said:
Trying to fold up the empty parts of herself, the still-open places her body was broken.

‘I’m an orphan,’ she said.

‘How’s that,’ he said. ‘I’m an orphan, too.’

Both liars, and they knew it. Trading their currency.

indianroads said:
...staring into his eyes as his guts spilled out on your boots was an entirely different experience.

War was always a nasty business...

Summer89 said:
There was a time when I was his everything.

Yep, good stuff.

The Second Moon · Sep 12, 2018

I just write this one and thought it was pretty good.

Something stepped out of the dark corner and into the candle light which melted the shadows from its purple robe.

cmhbob · Sep 12, 2018

Last line of the day here.

He took a moment to survey the room. Nothing seemed out of place, other than the dead girl in his bunk.

ap123 · Sep 13, 2018

cmhbob said:
Last line of the day here.

He took a moment to survey the room. Nothing seemed out of place, other than the dead girl in his bunk.

I like!

gem1122 · Sep 13, 2018

Struggling not to slip and fall, I gazed at the thick ice that coated the car’s windshield. It was beautiful, sparkling like a wall of diamonds, with just a hint of color...blues and reds...whirling...

Oh, shit.

flowerburgers · Sep 13, 2018

I wrote this today and I like it...on the main character's mother leaving him as a child:

How, I would wonder for years, could she leave like that, without saying goodbye? No one explained it. When, on a few occasions, I’d asked my father, he’d only say it was for the best. On the day of the exhibition, when I saw enter the Katherine Clark Gallery, my first thought was, My mother has died, and here is her ghost. She has come to howl at me like the wind at night. She will never, ever, leave me alone. In the pocket of her navy raincoat, not long after she moved away, I found her cigarettes. I kept them in my room and at night would pretend to smoke, until one day I built the courage to light one. I was—how old? Fifteen? I was coming after her with my heart full of flames. I was scared of trouble, the trouble that always came when I broke rules, rules I forgot, rules I didn’t like—but more than that, I was afraid to breathe her in and know her too well.

Ellis Clover · Sep 14, 2018

flowerburgers said:
I was coming after her with my heart full of flames. I was scared of trouble, the trouble that always came when I broke rules, rules I forgot, rules I didn’t like—but more than that, I was afraid to breathe her in and know her too well.

I liked your whole excerpt a lot, but this was extra-lovely.

Conrad Adamson · Sep 14, 2018

Older woman: "What do you care where he stuck his dick? He worshipped the ground you walked on!"
Younger woman: "Only because he walked on it too."

I really like this exchange. Not only is it clever and cheeky without being obscene, it describes a complex relationship with only a few words. Well done.

WriteMinded · Sep 15, 2018

Hi. Just lurking by. A trip to this thread is always worthwhile. Today was no exception.

anaemic_mind · Sep 15, 2018

I wrote a scene the other day and I'm still not sure if it'll make the final cut...but this line pretty much sums it up and makes me laugh.

"Aw, that’s so cute...if it didn’t involve quite so much vomit or disgusting mental images about blow jobs," Neela laughed.

Favorite lines you've written

watching The Office again

Old Hand in the Biz

AW's resident Velociraptor

Code Surfer

Wherever I go, there I am.

Sophipygian

Code Surfer

Huh.

Wherever I go, there I am.

Just pokin' about

watching The Office again

Huh.

Did...did I do that?

Twitching

We can pickle that

New Fish; Learning About Thick Skin

watching The Office again

Derailed

I come with accessories now