The opening line challenge is always a fun one — and this time, we had ~500 entries (!!?), which took quite a bit of reading just to get through. BUT I DID, and lo, was rewarded by a great deal of awesome. I’ve picked my favorites below, but even still, had to pick three as winners.
Those three are bolded and asterisked.
Winners: write me at terribleminds at gmail dot com.
Congrats! And well done, folks.
* * *
* The deck of the airship swarmed with wild-eyed girls gnashing their teeth and pumping filth-covered fists in the air like tiny, bloodthirsty monsters. — Jen Dornan-Fish
Choices are the hinges on the door of Destiny and Fate is the bitch who slammed that door in my face. — Silver James
The crack in the wall appeared three days after they moved in. — Ducky
At first we thought we could control the fire. — AE Lowan
Because the dead do not sleep, Doctor Marie Fluette was reading at her desk in the library when she felt the great building shudder like a flea-bit dog. — Aimee Kuzenski
* I had won a kingdom through iron and blood but I had no idea what to do with it. — Anthony
Nobody suspects the girl who smiles. — Allsnjill
These hands have done things that this mind should never have allowed. — Nick Nafpliotis
Once upon a time, a girl fell in love with a mountain. — Sean
I met a man made of smoke today. — JC Hemphill
The fat ginger was leaking lies like a punctured wineskin. — mtharpin
Up until last week I thought the worst night of my life was when the O’Connell brothers nailed my dad to a tree. — Lee Thompson
* I fed some ducks at your funeral. — Allison Forsythe
Kir Piccini says:
such great choices, I can’t imagine going through 500! Every one of these was an opening that made me want to read the sentence after it.
April 22, 2014 — 11:10 AM
Anthony says:
Woohoo! I won! Of course, now I need to actually use that line in something…
April 22, 2014 — 12:19 PM
Arley Sorg says:
you deserve a prize for going through 500 opening lines. wait… that makes you a slush reader….
April 22, 2014 — 12:27 PM
Jen Donohue says:
Congrats to the winners! The entries were all excellent.
April 22, 2014 — 12:46 PM
Jimmie says:
Congratulations, winners!
Chuck, thank you for going through all of them.
April 22, 2014 — 12:47 PM
Casea says:
Spin off! I have an itch. Take each of these opening lines and use them as the first sentence for the final paragraph of an unwritten story.
I love, “I fed some ducks at your funeral.” Great challenge, thanks for the fun read!
April 22, 2014 — 1:01 PM
JC Hemphill says:
Cool – glad you liked it. I’ll be posting a story I wrote for that line and another inspired by the contest on my blog shortly. Thanks for the inspiration!
April 22, 2014 — 3:08 PM
Rick Cook Jr says:
Glad to see you got an honorable mention! It was my personal favorite.
April 22, 2014 — 3:58 PM
Silver James says:
Damn! Thanks, Chuck. I’m in some fine company and honored. For reading all those lines, you deserve a bottle of 16 year old scotch. Or something. Mine is the opening line (slightly modified) for the 3rd book in one of my UF series. Now off to fulfill the rest of the challenge and write a bit of flash fiction. 😉
April 22, 2014 — 4:33 PM
Nick Nafpliotis (@NickNafster79) says:
Very honored to be a runner up for this group…and I desperately want to read a story attached to Anthony’s.
April 22, 2014 — 5:38 PM
Linda Sherrill says:
I loved reading all the entries. Chuck, you’re pretty kick-ass awesome to go through it all and pick some winners.
April 22, 2014 — 5:48 PM
entrebat says:
That was an egregious amount of lines to go through. Congratulations all!
April 22, 2014 — 6:10 PM
Allison Forsythe says:
Thanks, Chuck! I had a lot of fun reading through the entries, too.
The duck one really is the first line in my book. At my current rate of progress, the draft will be done in…37 years. But I’ll definitely be keeping that line!
April 22, 2014 — 7:27 PM
allsnjill says:
Wow, thanks for the runner-up nod! I’m happy that Ducky’s line got chosen as well, his was my favorite 🙂
April 22, 2014 — 7:29 PM
mtharpin says:
Pumped that my “Fat Ginger” made the cut on your favorites list. The amount of entries was straight cray—as the kids say. Happy B-Day brother, and thanks for the 500 gift. High five.
April 22, 2014 — 8:37 PM
Lee Thompson says:
Thank you, Chuck! Happy birthday, and thanks for the free download! Going to read it this week!
April 22, 2014 — 10:41 PM
Jen Dornan-Fish says:
Holy crapola, just saw this!!! Thank you Chuck!
May 30, 2014 — 11:26 PM