Behold last week’s challenge: “A Terrible Lie.”
(Alternate name for this challenge: “Just The Tip.”)
Normally, this challenge is about utilizing brevity — be it with a 1000 words, 100 words, or three sentences — to tell a complete story. Well, not today, my little red balloons.
Today, I just want a single sentence.
I want to read the opening line to a story.
One you’re just making up now.
One whose opening line will drag me kicking and screaming and shove my face into wanting more.
One whose opening line is sharp, enticing, potent.
So. You’ve got a single sentence to promise a killer story.
I’ll keep the challenge open for a week.
Winner gets a postcard in the mail from yours truly.
This postcard shall contain a piece of writing advice on it for you and you alone.
You’ve got one sentence and one week. Enter by 4/13/12 at noon EST.
Enter below in the comments — normally I’d have you post elsewhere, but these will be brief.
EDIT:
To clarify, please enter only once.
Sigil says:
‘What the hell is go- shit, are they *bodies*?’
April 6, 2012 — 12:36 AM
Ahimsa says:
It was raining dreams again.
April 6, 2012 — 12:40 AM
Bill Griggs says:
I had a vague notion that jumping off of a fifty-foot wall to attack a twelve-foot tall Troll may not have been the smartest idea I’ve ever had, but I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop me.
April 6, 2012 — 1:16 AM
Sparky says:
I really should have been more specific when I said I wanted to join a secret society.
April 6, 2012 — 1:28 AM
holyspigot says:
Nice, Ahimsa!
And on a different note:
Accommodating animals, sheep.
April 6, 2012 — 1:29 AM
Jacob Cornell says:
“Leave the sheep behind, boy, for your life as a lion is well under way.”
April 6, 2012 — 1:38 AM
Rachel Keslensky says:
Somewhere in between running for my life in little more than my cabana wear through a heavily secured fortress, I forgot to look for important things like not teleporting myself into a concrete wall.
April 6, 2012 — 2:04 AM
David Grigg says:
“I was standing by the frozen lake when she came out of the mist, her head surrounded by a golden halo.”
OK, now I have to go and write the story that goes along with this!
April 6, 2012 — 2:14 AM
Merrilee says:
The silence was wrong, like waking in a cold bed, empty of your recent lover.
April 6, 2012 — 2:45 AM
Natalie says:
The storm rattled against the windows and lightening illuminated the naked man leaning over her bed as the nun awoke with a scream.
April 6, 2012 — 3:34 AM
Anna Lewis says:
He was nine when he watched his father die, brawling with the other men of Llangennith for beach salvage like dogs over a carcass, and he grinned madly as the man he knew as “Da” fell in the surf and failed to rise.
April 6, 2012 — 3:34 AM
liblarva says:
Not even through a reflection could they look each other in the eyes.
April 6, 2012 — 3:44 AM
Bill Dezell says:
One of the downsides to living in the digital age, as opposed to the forties, is the fact that a laptop computer and a cell phone with voice mail can do everything a secretary can–except make coffee, screen clients, and fill out a skirt.
April 6, 2012 — 4:22 AM
James Hamilton says:
My deathbed still hadn’t turned up.
April 6, 2012 — 5:25 AM
Shiri Sondeimer says:
The blood curse tore in to her, vicious teeth and rotting tentacles opening rotten lacerations in her bright soul.
April 6, 2012 — 6:15 AM
Shiri Sondeimer says:
Sorry. Above should have said “fatal lacerations.” I shouldn’t try to do these things before I’m fully awake…
April 6, 2012 — 6:16 AM
Bonnee says:
The most significant image in my memory – the most prominent, outstanding, strange and wonderful image – was the last thing I can remember seeing before I died.
April 6, 2012 — 6:39 AM
Tim of Angle says:
“Your fingerprints were on the gun.”
April 6, 2012 — 6:55 AM
Fiona says:
He looked more like an avenging angel of God than a young computer hacker as he strode through the smoke and flames to sweep me up in a single fluid motion without saying a word.
April 6, 2012 — 7:13 AM
John Pula says:
If I’d have known in college what I’d be doing now, I would have payed more attention in Alien Anatomy.
April 6, 2012 — 7:35 AM
Dave Versace says:
Nyssa Cole triggered her first apocalypse the day she discovered that not everybody could see ghosts.
April 6, 2012 — 7:59 AM
Alfio Basile says:
“I’m onto you, commie pig, you won’t get away whit this!”
April 6, 2012 — 8:05 AM
Elb Spurlock says:
Occasionally dead such as men, along the decadent crescendo of long lost troubles, I sat, just thinking.
April 6, 2012 — 8:07 AM
Keryn Egan says:
Nosy Mrs. McGregor next door got a year’s worth of gossip the day Flannery Donaldson blew up his hall closet again.
April 6, 2012 — 8:24 AM
Dan says:
Becoming immortal was the easy part, but what came later made me want to die.
April 6, 2012 — 9:14 AM
Benoit Lelievre says:
You couldn’t really explain twelve bodies, a torched summer house, an Amber alter and four broken ribs, but Tommy had to try, for mom’s sake.
April 6, 2012 — 9:17 AM
Benoit Lelievre says:
*typo in the first one*
You couldn’t really explain twelve bodies, a torched summer house, an Amber alert and four broken ribs, but Tommy had to try, for mom’s sake.
April 6, 2012 — 9:17 AM
Martha Bechtel says:
Every time she died there was less of her to bring back.
(also: Awesome sentence Ahimsa! 😀 )
April 6, 2012 — 9:18 AM
Jamie McCoard (@Tevyn) says:
After loosing everything last year, I never would of thought that my nightmare inspired screams of torment would change it again.
April 6, 2012 — 9:31 AM
Jamie McCoard (@Tevyn) says:
*Oops. The previous was draft, here is the edited version. *
After loosing everything last year, I never would of thought that my nightmare inspired screams of torment would change my existence again.
April 6, 2012 — 9:33 AM
Chris says:
We never saw or spoke to each other again, but that didn’t mean I stopped thinking about our time together.
April 6, 2012 — 9:49 AM
Mark Kurlyandchik says:
A violent quiet muffled the once windswept cotton fields he thought he remembered from his sullied youth.
April 6, 2012 — 9:53 AM
Shawn McGee says:
Regina fought back her first impulse to pull her sword and then she smiled and gave him a wink that promised more than a wink should.
April 6, 2012 — 10:05 AM
My Awful Reviews says:
Wilford watched the naked man jump out the window
April 6, 2012 — 10:11 AM
Rob Durand says:
The blood pool was slowly turning black and I knew I was fucked.
April 6, 2012 — 10:12 AM
Joi_the_Artist says:
The stars prickled against the vacuum of space as the golden arc of Venus rolled into view, its mustard-colored atmosphere roiling: it was a beautiful morning.
April 6, 2012 — 10:13 AM
Mark says:
It was while I was scraping up my best friend’s entrails, I realised where I’d gone wrong.
April 6, 2012 — 10:14 AM
Anthony Laffan says:
There was something wonderfully refreshing about extinguishing all life on a planet first thing in the morning.
April 6, 2012 — 10:16 AM
Kassil says:
I stood on the sidewalk, staring up in shock as the sky shattered.
April 6, 2012 — 10:16 AM
Cate Morgan says:
Her world from earliest remembering was one of nightmares and dark unknown–not all of them on the outside.
April 6, 2012 — 10:17 AM
Lee Collins says:
They found her later that day, incoherent, wandering barefoot along the interstate, a fresh tattoo engraved above her left eye.
April 6, 2012 — 10:18 AM
Gary Weller says:
Grant and Eva exhaled in plumes of blue smoke in final preparation of the journey into their new bodies.
April 6, 2012 — 10:18 AM
Jessie says:
Okay, I can deal with the two card counting Elves and the Dwarf trying to palm aces, but what really chaffed my Licensed Hero ass was the dyslexic Dragon taking up seats five, six and seven who was a better card cheat than I’ve ever been, and not knowing how to expose him without becoming a tasty snack in the process.
April 6, 2012 — 10:18 AM
Abby says:
I should’ve realized that one of my neighbors was a killer.
April 6, 2012 — 10:24 AM
Curtis Edmonds says:
The echo of his last shotgun blast was fading as Thor Slaymaster stepped over the broken, bleeding bodies of what had once been a minor Canadian pop group known as “Nickelback.”
April 6, 2012 — 10:24 AM
N.V. Binder says:
Charlie held the door for me, and in three small steps I ran into the truth that would define the rest of my life: I was no longer a prisoner of war.
April 6, 2012 — 10:35 AM
Damien Kelly says:
What is it about girls with bone necklaces and pearly blades that can slit a guy’s grin wide open and pull him back into playing crap games for souls?
April 6, 2012 — 10:40 AM
Ingrid K. V. Hardy says:
It came from under the chair, dragging my fear along with it.
April 6, 2012 — 10:41 AM
Steph Snow says:
Connie wanted so badly to back away as she closed the iron door of the wood stove, but instead she forced herself to watch through the window until the baby’s shoes, their white canvas now stained a bright red, finally caught.
April 6, 2012 — 10:44 AM
Nathan Long says:
It was only a scratch.
April 6, 2012 — 10:45 AM