{"id":23020,"date":"2014-04-11T11:37:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T15:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=23020"},"modified":"2014-04-11T11:37:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T15:37:09","slug":"flash-fiction-challenge-the-return-of-the-opening-line-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2014\/04\/11\/flash-fiction-challenge-the-return-of-the-opening-line-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Flash Fiction Challenge: The Return Of The Opening Line Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week’s challenge: Life Is Hell<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I love this challenge because it always generates some interesting results.<\/p>\n

It’s easy in concept, difficult in execution:<\/p>\n

Come up with a great opening line.<\/p>\n

That’s it.<\/p>\n

Take that line, and drop it into the comments below.<\/p>\n

BUT WAIT.<\/p>\n

As they say, THERE’S MORE.<\/p>\n

This opening line must be one sentence long<\/em> — no more than that. Anything longer and I will publicly laugh at your inability to stick to the barest-of-bones submission guidelines.<\/p>\n

I’d suggest avoiding some very cliched openings — previous challenges have yielded three overwrought motifs in this particular challenge, those three being:<\/p>\n

Blood.<\/p>\n

A gun.<\/p>\n

Someone about to die \/ someone already dead (future corpse \/ current corpse).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, maybe avoid those things unless you really<\/em> think you can nail it.<\/p>\n

The trick to writing a great opening line is keeping it brief, and yet at the same time suggesting<\/em> a great deal of potential — an opening line is equal parts promise<\/em> and fish-hook stuck in the reader’s brain-meats<\/em>. It should make us want to read the rest of the story. Or, even better, make us as writers want to write<\/em> the rest of that story (and par usual, that will be the nature of next Friday’s challenge). Nailing the opening line is a Samurai move — it’s delivering a single sword blow to end the match.<\/p>\n

There will be a prize.<\/p>\n

I’ll pick three that I love. And those three will get the first as-yet-unreleased e-book copies of my newest writing book,\u00a0500 Ways To Write Harder<\/span><\/a><\/strong>. You’ll get the book in PDF, ePub, and Kindle formats, all DRM-free because, really, fuck DRM right in its digital sphincter.<\/p>\n

You have\u00a0one week<\/em> to get your lines in the door. Due firmly by noon EST on April 18th. I will then pick winners over the next week thereafter. You are allowed\u00a0one entry<\/em>, no more. Additional entries disqualify you.<\/p>\n

So.<\/p>\n

One opening line.<\/p>\n

Make it sharp.<\/p>\n

Win a book.<\/p>\n

Drop it in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week’s challenge: Life Is Hell. I love this challenge because it always generates some interesting results. It’s easy in concept, difficult in execution: Come up with a great opening line. That’s it. Take that line, and drop it into the comments below. BUT WAIT. As they say, THERE’S MORE. This opening line must be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-5Zi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23020"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23025,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23020\/revisions\/23025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}