Flash Fiction Challenge: The Kick-Ass Opening Line


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”

  1. Seeing as I learned long ago there is no point in starting with “You’re not going to believe this,” I’m not going to bother to say it this time.

  2. “You wrong there,” said Ange, as she strapped on her holster, “There ain’t nothin half so funny – and messy – as a baby learning to feed hisself.”

  3. Every Tom, Dick and Scientologist crowded against the crime scene tape that morning on Hollywood Boulevard.

  4. I should really stop killing people and eating their brains but then again, brains are tasty.

    Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a lady who liked to flay people alive and then laugh while they screamed.

    It was possible I had gone through buggered, past buggeration and right on into screwedville.

    Sometimes, having farking great mandibles growing out of your head while in high school can be a serious drag,

    Zombies are not the best way to wake up to a morning, trust me on this.

    Aw, nuts

    I would prefer it if my prey came to me, but that’s not always possible, or hygienic.

    Why has that man got tentacles coming out of his nose, mummy?

    This was the day my life turned to shit

    There are three universal truths; humans are arseholes, cheese is the food of the gods, and I always get the alien-squid hunting mission.

  5. The night was cool, the stars were bright, and Roger found himself, once again, puzzled by the corpse sprawled before his feet.

  6. I have no idea what happened to the screaming infant in her crib or the grease fire blazing in the kitchen, but I did know one thing, it was time to leave.

  7. He’s a jaded zombie vagrant trapped in a world he never made, she’s a wealthy thirtysomething queen of the dead prone to fits of savage, blood-crazed rage, they fight crime!

    Oh wait, wrong challenge…

  8. It wasn’t any one thing that made her act that day; it was a thousand paper cuts that never seemed to heal.

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