Okay, as I promised, here are the first lines I posted the other day. Only one person guessed one right. I posted them so you could see how with only one sentence you already get a sense of whether or not you want to read the book. Every one of these authors are personal favorites.
1. Max had five minutes.
Breaking Point by Suzanne Brockman. RS about a Special Ops team.
2. He was never coming back.
Daring to Dream by Nora Roberts No comment necessary
3. Sophie Dempsey didn't like Temptation even before the Garveys smashed into her '86 Civic, broke her sister's sunglasses, and confirmed all her worst suspicions about people from small towns who drove beige Cadillacs.
Welcome to Temptation by Jenny Crusie. Laugh out loud funny
4."It would be easy to kill you while you sleep."
Bloody Mary by J.A. Konrath I love this man!
5. No security cameras this time, but he still has to be careful.
Dirty Martini by J.A. Konrath
6. Making up a boyfriend is nothing new to me.
Too Good to be True by Kristin Higgins who visits this blog occasionally. Loved this.
7. Senator Frederick Wallace of South Carolina rose at dawn from the bed in the lakeside cabin that he had shared with his African-American lover for more than twenty years.
Capital Crimes by Stuart Woods. Another of my favorites.
8. She felt his breath.
Shiver
by Lisa Jackson.
You can see how some of these first lines jump out at you, while others are ho-hum. You can get away with ho-hum if you are rich and famous. For those of you who have been culled, take heart. This has nothing to do with how well you write or if you will get published or not. It is simply a judge's opinion of something that caught their eye. I've personally entered my friend, Karin Tabke's first line contest a few times and have never made it very far. With her contest, if you make it to the next round, you post your second line, and so on. It was amazing to see how many of the entries fell apart after one or two great lines.
A lesson for all of us. Make sure each word is the best one you can come up with as that first line may be all you get from an agent/editor.
That said, I will post the 28 finalists' last lines (hook) on Monday. Two people didn't make the deadline to submit and were automatically culled according to the rules posted. That means only 18 of the entries will be eliminated this time. The last ten standing will then submit a three line blurb that will go directly to Christine Witthohn, Book Cents Literary.
Happy Mothers' Day to everyone. Now off to enjoy my grandkids!
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7 comments:
Thanks for posting the names of the books & authors for those first lines. The one that got me was from Konrath, an author I have just discovered with The List. Could not put it down. Felt the final sequence could have used better motivation, but all-in-all an eye-popper of an adventure. Love to download things. Kind of fun to follow this. It reminds me of something, if I could only remember what.
Lyn,
When you can't remember something, they have a name for that. CRS. And I'm not about to share it here.
I plead total ignorance, then again for me that's not hard-did get any.
Happy Mother's Day to you moms. I might go visit my mom's grave.
This has been fun.
Happy mother's day all.
I've read some of those books and didn't even recognized the line. LOL. Which is why 'Max had five minutes.' sounded so familiar.
Have a happy mothers day everyone!
Kari, is right this contest has been fun.
Lyn, I see bluebonnets in your picture. Are you from Texas??
I love JA Konrath. When Christine met him at last year's RT,she told him she had a client who made her buy his book (I love both books I quoted and all his others.) Anyway, he told her he would give me a blurb when I sold!!!
I'm gonna have to look him up. His website and blog are filed with useful information for authors. Check him out.
I know all about CRS, Lindsay. My Mom is in heaven looking down, too.
Kari, Mary and Cassy, as well as all the mothers out there - hope your day was as good as mine.
Oh, yes, Texan here! Glad you recognized the bluebonnets--the avatar site has them listed as "strange flowers." Huh!
I am always on the lookout for Texas writers. On that note, I really miss the little bookshop--that closed years ago--where the owners would meet me near the front of the store and say, "We have a new release from a local writer, and you're going to love it!"
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