Last week’s challenge: “The Secret Door.”
I love a good opening line.
You lead with a great first line in a story, man, that’s just hooks you right away, doesn’t it? It’s like a key to a door. Opens up the world and your interest in it lickety-split.
So, that’s what I want from you.
I want you to write one opening line.
And then I’ll pick three.
And if those three people are in the United States, I’ll send them a copy of my book, The Blue Blazes, when it comes out. If you’re in the UK or anywhere else across the big wide world, you may have to settle for a digital copy, but I’ll make sure to get you one just the same.
Now, some rules:
A line means one sentence, not two, not three.
You get one entry, not two, not three.
Put your entry in the comments below.
I’ll pick three of my favorites by the close of Thursday the 11th (11:59PM) and then the following challenge next Friday will be for you folks to pick one of the three opening lines and write a story based on it. Which means you also might want to take a gander at these suggestions:
Shorter is better than longer.
Try too to keep in mind that you’re writing an opening line for other stories; the trick is to write something engaging while still writing a line that could apply to a great many styles and genres of story. Something that appeals and hooks in this case not just readers but other writers, too.
You’re writing lines for potential, is my point.
That’s how I’ll pick my favorites. Based on their potential to make interesting stories.
So! You’ve got a little less than one week.
One opening line. Let’s see what you’ve got.
448 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: The Kick-Ass Opening Line”
Washing blood and entrails out of my hair wasn’t what I had in mind for a Friday night.
The gun stared at her with the promise of the inevitable void.
The rain had washed away the blood, but not the memories.
I swear that this thing is not powered by electricity, but by a process of Satan’s ass crack spawned cosmic osmosis that sucks rainbows from the sky and the happiness from frolicking Unicorns and puppies.
I hear the drums of battle.
For those of you still left, welcome to the fuckin’ funhouse!
Liking it!
Sense might be anything but common, but I never thought it would be me; not until I heard that ‘click’.
“Time to get some skin in the game kid,” he said as he placed the gun in my hand.
When Cicero said, ‘You may trust him in the dark’ he wasn’t talking about me — not then, and certainly not now.
I tried to stay hidden, away from everyone and everything: I tried not to let the darkness leak out but they just wouldn’t leave me alone.
Uh, I like this one!
Inspecting her blood splattered hands still shaking from adrenaline, she marveled at just how easy it was to kill the man.
She looked up and cursed the blue of the sky.
You are fired.
[…] again Chuck Wendig, at his Terrible Minds site, has a writing assignment for all of his fellow ‘Word […]
It was a cold rainy April morning in Detroit and in the middle of the field the corpse was screaming.
I was supposed to be off the grid.
I was a rookie reconnoitering his first crime scene and it had been raining hard all afternoon.
I chose my new name carefully – it meant nothing, and no one.
I picked the wallet up; the money inside was blood-spattered.
i wish i could have given this a try but i discovered this site just two hours ago!!!!
Sex is all it’s cracked up to be.
It won’t matter now, but i came up with an idea for an opening line: Where I come from people say that life is an open door, but if thats true what is imortality?
The only thing I can remember is the sound.
With steady hands, he said, “Open wide, and remember to keep your tongue out of the way or it will bite you.”
People die all the time, but you never really believe it’ll happen to you, especially after it all ready has.
Somewhere, a penny drops.
„Now that is what I call a high quality steak knife“, she said, smiling as she cut though muscle and bone of her third victim this week, looking into his panicked eyes.
[…] at terribleminds Chuck Wendig has given the task of coming up with a great opening line. He will choose the top […]
Spitting a broken tooth into my hand was not on my list of things to do today.
This is not an opening line. Chuck, dude, I do not envy you having to wade your way through the 265 comments (thus far). Sorry to add to the problem. I will drink a whisky in sympathy (it’s a blended malt scotch, I hope you karmically receive the smoky flavours)
“This is what dying is like kid, and you better get used to it.”
I hastily jerked a spear out of a dead man in tattered, bloody business attire before hurrying into The Elevator with the other, panting survivors.
Special message direct from the Chosen One™: “Fuck Destiny, fuck it right in the ear.”
He awoke and groaned, at the pain in his head and out of dismay upon realising the map was gone.
[…] of a sleep in this morning, which was awesome. For all of those interested, Chuck Wendig has a flash fiction challenge for a single opening line going on over at his blog. It closes a minute before midnight […]
He wished the Colonial bastard had been a better shot.
This, thought Ryan Curley as the young woman in the Quality Control Booth splayed trembling thighs and loosed another pathetic whimper of pleasure, is not what I went to college for.
The coffin ascended, slotting into place two hundred feet above Tom’s head.
Jacquie Creen had a face that could level cities.
I was born beneath a black veil of mourning, a dark bud blooming deep in its shadow.
He said “I charge for that.”
Nile Collins waited impatiently for his head to be reattached after his recent beheading.
It throbbed; I giggled.
If a stranger ever hands you an orange envelope without a word of explanation, do NOT open the damn thing.
“Holy shit, the bread machine is not supposed to do that”, she thought as she surveyed the carnage in the kitchen; it was far too early on a Sunday morning and she needed a very strong coffee before she could face calling the cops.
I don’t have a gun or a fast acting poison, but at least I can shut off my suit’s oxygen.
Captain Obvious deserves knuckles, full set, right in the mouth.
Disappearing wasn’t all that difficult.
The floor shuddered beneath my feet; I’d always known that I was going to go out in a blaze of glory, but this was just ridiculous.
Why this, again?