Flash Fiction Challenge: Time Again To Write An Opening Sentence
That classic challenge is back:
Do not write a story.
Nope. Mm-mm, don’t do it.
Instead:
Write only an opening sentence.
Not two sentences. Not three. One. Good. Sentence.
Drop the opening sentence in the comments below, and then next week we will make use of some of those sentences for the next challenge. You’ve got one week — due by next Friday, the 17th, noon EST. Get cracking, word-herders.
April 11, 2015 @ 5:58 AM
The picture on the screen gave no clues about the perpetrator, making her miss the good old days of print photography, when she could have dusted it for fingerprints or analyzed the paper for something that would help catch the Fool’s Funnel murderer.
April 11, 2015 @ 6:27 AM
“My lord, I’m truly sorry.”
April 11, 2015 @ 6:46 AM
The inhabitants of Stultus Prime lived in houses of broken glass, never curious enough to use the wood from the Tumidi Forest for their dwellings.
April 11, 2015 @ 7:13 AM
“Lucifer was right, you are a monumental douche.”
April 11, 2015 @ 9:19 AM
This sounds like something one of my old girlfriends would say to me. I love it!
April 11, 2015 @ 9:47 AM
And the next line would be, “And you trust the Father the Lies?”
April 12, 2015 @ 4:41 AM
Actually I’ve come up with a longer line that fits around this statement quite well….
Jesus looked up at the sky blinking the blood from his eyes, the thorns bit deeper but he ignored the pain as he roared to the heavens “Lucifer was right, you are a monumental douche.”
April 12, 2015 @ 11:04 AM
Oh that’s even better, gives a much better context. 😀
April 21, 2015 @ 10:49 AM
I have to use this line. It’s on my site so I don’t have to censor, right?
April 24, 2015 @ 11:57 AM
Hey! I used your line for a ~1800 word story this week:
https://poordicks.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/flash-fiction-challenge-lucifer-was-right-you-are-a-monumental-douche/
I hope you (anyone who reads it) enjoy it.
April 11, 2015 @ 7:29 AM
Let’s see, yes, I think this is where it starts.
April 21, 2015 @ 12:35 PM
Taking that one…
April 11, 2015 @ 8:33 AM
Outside, two men were waiting.
April 11, 2015 @ 8:47 AM
It leapt out of his chest, looked around angrily, and then leapt back in.
April 11, 2015 @ 11:38 AM
I love this! I’m already intrigued by what and why and how this is happening to this character.
April 12, 2015 @ 11:23 AM
Thanks, Annie. Guess I’ll have to write a story with that line. Want one leaping out of your chest, too, while I’m at it?
April 11, 2015 @ 9:22 AM
Eighteen disfigured bodies greeted me as I walked into the hotel lobby.
April 12, 2015 @ 11:05 AM
I’m seeing disfigured bodies literally saying ‘hey there, good to see you’ … lol
April 13, 2015 @ 1:12 PM
That would scare me more than seeing the disfigured bodies lying on the ground. LOL
April 13, 2015 @ 2:53 PM
I would definitely read that story!
April 11, 2015 @ 9:36 AM
Her favourite day was Wednesday, the day when Herr Amsell let the old men into the brothel for half price.
April 11, 2015 @ 9:58 AM
This was, and wasn’t, my fault.
April 11, 2015 @ 11:30 AM
Love this! I can already tell that I will like this character,
April 12, 2015 @ 12:13 PM
I LOVE this.
April 12, 2015 @ 7:06 PM
Thanks devsmess and Mary 🙂
April 11, 2015 @ 9:58 AM
I felt her eyes slide over me like oil for the hundredth time that evening.
April 11, 2015 @ 5:59 PM
I think this would be stronger if you removed “like oil.” Otherwise great opening.
April 12, 2015 @ 11:06 AM
If the person being looked at is uncomfortable, your second line could be something along the lines of “It made me feel like I was coated in an oily residue and needed a hot shower to scrub it off.”
April 11, 2015 @ 10:21 AM
I didn’t see the bear, at first.
April 11, 2015 @ 11:09 AM
Mark was so afraid that he would wake up and see a horse head next to his pillow that he placed a fresh one every night himself.
April 11, 2015 @ 6:25 PM
Personally, I prefer a mint under the pillow rather than a horses’s head on top. Just sayin’.
April 11, 2015 @ 11:11 AM
I should have known better.
April 13, 2015 @ 7:13 AM
Great first AND last line. Loved it.
April 11, 2015 @ 11:28 AM
There were many times when he wanted to call for help, but he was a ghost and nobody helped ghosts.
April 11, 2015 @ 2:06 PM
Aw, I help ghosts. Or I’d help them if I could see them. This sentence totally broke my heart.
April 11, 2015 @ 11:47 AM
It is her first day in the strange city and she has been called “tyro-walker” since she first stepped off the train car.
April 11, 2015 @ 12:49 PM
Rocky sat on the old back porch watching the old hag trying to hand up clothes.
April 11, 2015 @ 12:59 PM
Whoever thought peace was easy, well, they never fought a war for ten thousand years.
April 11, 2015 @ 2:04 PM
Mom called it slaughter fog, the way it crept across the fields near the slaughter house outside town.
April 18, 2015 @ 2:47 PM
Picking yours up:)
April 11, 2015 @ 2:25 PM
There was something not quite right about that headstone.
April 11, 2015 @ 6:44 PM
Being on display in the living room? Yeah, kind of not quite right.
April 17, 2015 @ 8:15 PM
Ashlee, I’m using yours. 😀
April 11, 2015 @ 2:34 PM
After many hours of treading water and praying for help he felt hands on him, and he praised God that by some miracle he was rescued—until they pulled him under.
April 15, 2015 @ 3:45 PM
I *love* this line! Instant horror. It’s fantastically unexpected and leads my imagination into the deep dark ocean. Fantastic!
April 11, 2015 @ 3:19 PM
The dog doesn´t speak to you, just smiles and wags its tail.
April 11, 2015 @ 3:22 PM
Of course I do not believe in “evil” things, but these weird coincidences freak me out.
April 11, 2015 @ 3:24 PM
“Daddy, why do fish have noses, if they can’t suck in the water?”
April 11, 2015 @ 3:30 PM
A dozen half naked guys bolt headlessly, like zebras from a lion attack.
April 11, 2015 @ 3:31 PM
I’m sorry, couldn’t hold myself back…
April 11, 2015 @ 3:35 PM
“I’m on the highway to hell,” I belted out and carried on with the CPR.
April 24, 2015 @ 11:34 AM
I’m using this one. Hope to have it up shortly — I’ll link it in this thread: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/04/17/flash-fiction-challenge-pick-an-opening-sentence-and-go/
April 11, 2015 @ 3:38 PM
You know, the lunar mines aren’t peaceful, but they are the only choice, if you want to escape the colony.
April 11, 2015 @ 3:45 PM
He was the seventh clone – Septimus was handy.
April 11, 2015 @ 3:54 PM
“What did you learn about death among the living?”
April 14, 2015 @ 1:02 PM
Didn’t Chuck say One. Good. Sentence? 😉
These are all dynamite, though. Good work!
April 14, 2015 @ 3:53 PM
Yeah- each is one, one at a time. 😀 I tried to hold back, but nothing can stop this hellish one-sentence-perpetuum-mobile in my head…
April 11, 2015 @ 4:42 PM
“Are you sure about this?” he asked in a hushed voice to his twin sister’s back.
April 11, 2015 @ 5:30 PM
There were four of us — including one of the Saints — in the ATV when we left the Refuge and set off across the barren landscape of what we still thought of as Arizona.
April 15, 2015 @ 3:47 PM
I immediately want to see this as an action film. I’m picturing Sci-Fi Western. Great job!
April 11, 2015 @ 6:03 PM
When they told the gate guard to expect a dog, he sort of figured it was a joke.
April 11, 2015 @ 6:42 PM
My dreams are filled with dead things that move, slithering shadows, gleaming black blood, and broken teeth; yet I still prefer them to the world outside my head.
April 12, 2015 @ 12:11 AM
Haunting and powerful–a great beginning
April 12, 2015 @ 11:10 AM
The evil you know is generally preferable to the evil you don’t know…
Love your beginning line.
April 11, 2015 @ 9:01 PM
Despite being a ten-year veteran of the Extraordinary Events Bureau, more commonly known as the ThaumaCops, this was the first time Lester MacDougall had faced a sloppy stormcloud-smuggler attempting to resist arrest by releasing the stormcloud.
April 11, 2015 @ 9:05 PM
Sometimes I eavesdrop on my roommate’s conversations with inanimate objects.
April 13, 2015 @ 5:31 AM
i dont know who’s creepier. i love it
April 11, 2015 @ 9:15 PM
There I was shoving dirty clothes and garbage into the hall closet, tossing smelly sneakers down the hallway like a madwoman, when the doorbell rang; in that moment, my hopes and dreams floated out of me like a body giving up the ghost.
April 11, 2015 @ 10:19 PM
It’s regrettable, but the death of a marriage is only truly acceptable when one of the vested parties leaves as a corpse.
April 12, 2015 @ 9:07 AM
This is wonderful. I get the set up, the novel-feel and a hook all in one. Bravo!
April 17, 2015 @ 4:52 PM
Yay! Thank you.
April 11, 2015 @ 10:27 PM
Maybe they were right, he thought as he kissed the young woman’s corpse, maybe Mean Mister Marcus really was a madman.
April 11, 2015 @ 10:34 PM
She struck the match against the air and watched the tip ignite, wondering what she could burn with an impossible flame.
April 12, 2015 @ 2:28 AM
He stared at the three buttons: all big; all red; each individually labelled as follows – ‘Anger’, ‘Sorrow’, ‘Death’.
April 17, 2015 @ 3:34 PM
Love this and using it 🙂
April 12, 2015 @ 2:36 AM
We had two options: we could either tie our hair together or die, and you can tell it wasn’t a hard choice.
April 12, 2015 @ 3:02 AM
I’m not saying the old widow could do it… not exactly, but many were the whispers of recommendation, and none were the voices of recrimination.
April 12, 2015 @ 4:53 AM
Two down, one to go: the five words you should never hear from your daughter.
April 12, 2015 @ 5:52 AM
You can’t argue about beauty, but this hideous thing puts on a mask and mugs beauty, spits in the eye of beauty, kicks it in the teeth.
April 12, 2015 @ 7:26 AM
Her granny panties were the colour of “Bleach! My eyes need bleach!”
April 12, 2015 @ 9:08 AM
The challenge to write the first sentence of a story precipitated a cacophony of syllables, none of which soothed her burning skin.
April 15, 2015 @ 4:29 AM
Yup. Some days that’s JUST how it feels!
April 12, 2015 @ 9:14 AM
When they brought my sister home in the gilded litter, my first thought was that she had not been wearing red when she left; the second was that she was dead.
April 12, 2015 @ 9:19 AM
I’m a little bit confused but 100% intrigued and willing to wait and find out what’s going on.
Sweet stuff.
April 12, 2015 @ 9:25 AM
It’s the opening sentence of a short I had published a while back and was really proud of – I’m interested to see what others might do with it.
April 12, 2015 @ 9:17 AM
When she reached up to slip her bronzing hair behind an ear, her wrist jostled and shook with loops and tangles of small bones and even smaller teeth, those of which entranced me more than anything else in that stretching market of foreign wares.
April 12, 2015 @ 10:52 AM
Vanessa closed and locked the door to the ratty apartment; everything she still owned packed in the bags at her feet.