Ahem, ahem.
Hear ye, hear ye.
Here are the three opening lines I’ve chosen:
Brendan Gannon: “Everyone else remembers it as the day the saucers came, but I remember it as the day a man in a suit shot my father.”
Joe Parrino: “Three truths will I tell you and one lie.”
Delilah Dawson: “Thursday was out to get me.”
This was, as so many contests here are anymore, a tough one to pick. Nearly 200 entries (!) and many of them good. (Though, pro-tip: bad spelling and/or typos will never help you win here.)
Here’s roughly what I ended up looking for:
I wanted lines that told multiple potential stories. Meaning, a writer could read it and find a world of stories coming out of that one line — not just the one obvious one, say. Some lines were very specific to a genre or to an event and so I hesitated using them, despite their inherent awesomeness. The exception here might be the “saucer” one, but it was so cool I had to use it. Don’t judge me.
So, the three who won:
Contact me, I shall hook you up with a copy of Bait Dog.
(Bait Dog is now available, by the way. Just $2.99 until next Wednesday. Plug, plug, hint, hint.)
Everybody else:
You’ve got 1000 words.
Write a story using one of the above opening lines.
Due by Friday, Aug 17th, at noon EST. Post online, link in the comments.
You know the drill.
Ilona says:
I’m afraid I modified the line to fit a voice rather than fit the voice around the line, but at least it’s short! 354 words: Implications
http://ilonatherose.wordpress.com/implications/
I actually thought, when embarking on last week’s challenge, that we would have to continue on with our own opening lines, so I built an entire world around my sentence (Cherish your freedom, little brother, there’s no such thing as boredom in the Badlands). And now I’m darn well going to write that story – stay tuned, you three people who follow my blog!
August 17, 2012 — 9:01 AM
Erin M. Hartshorn says:
Mine just went up this morning. “Going to Get You.” http://www.erinmhartshorn.com/flash-going-to-get-you/
August 17, 2012 — 11:09 AM
Mike says:
Looking at the other entries, it seems like a twist would have been to use the first line and write about flying saucers, not dishes. Oh well, still had fun with this.
http://www.ravensview.ca/ravens/2012/08/the-saucers.html
August 17, 2012 — 11:48 AM
Mike says:
I liked the story by Beth L. – would love to comment but unfortunately it’s one of those Tumblr accounts.
http://knotachance.tumblr.com/
August 18, 2012 — 1:50 PM
Sarah O'Hara says:
Interesting, but I’d much rather write my own.
October 12, 2012 — 4:36 AM