First Thirty Finalists From Hook, Line, & Sinker Contest

Congrats to the ones who made the cut.

1. The stench of blood can ruin a spring morning.

2. Friggen appropriate, the bathroom door opens and my life goes down the toilet.

6. If she’d been a bad girl when she had the chance, she probably wouldn’t be dying right now.

7. Frustrated, Ezra shot the mysterious message one last piercing stare before tossing the note on his desk beside its mate.

8. Camels.

11. Death lurked in the shadows, and I knew it searched for me.

12. Sometimes ghosts can be so rude.

13. When I was six and she was nine, my cousin Claudia told me to touch the electric fence.

14. My mother always wanted me to become a beautician, and as I unzipped the body bag of the three-hundred pound corpse, I snapped the lip of my neoprene glove for not heeding her advice.

15. It started out so innocently -- with a chamois cloth, some silver polish, and a bottle of Brasso.

19. If you’re running from the law and you are the law, don’t forget your sunscreen.

20. You can’t rewrite history with a bulldozer, Mr. Maxwell.”

21. I never thought I would be considered a home wrecker, but it's what I became

22. Rowen's first anniversary was definitely not the best time for her husband to show up missing.

23, What I wanted would kill me.

28. The two old Voodoo priestesses faced each other in the single-room shack, their eyes wide with fear.

29. Getting shot was a bitch - every time.

32. The stitch in Lara’s right side stabbed like a shiv.

33. "The trick was to keep the truth hidden, twelve year old Abby Jenkins thought, as she sat listening to the psychologist."

37. The dead girl stood below Gate B4 of New York's Greater Rochester International Airport.

38. Michael could feel the warm blood running down his face.

40. There must be sixty billion dollars on the hoof down there in my living room, and my idiot husband is schmoozing the dollar-ninety-eight seance sister."

41. Something was coming, something not so good - she could feel it, smell it on the furious wind.

42. The Sana Ana winds blew full force this morning – hot and dry, as tree branches slapped against the bedroom window, mercifully waking Irene Carillo from another nightmare..

43. “So…you really don’t know where your underwear might be?”

44. Death turned its sights on me Tuesday morning when dying was the last thing on my mind.

46. The elevator doors opened facing the sign for Children’s Psychiatry and Seth Bellingham froze

48. Lamplight pooled around me, and I felt the eyes of the homeless man move over my body.

49. My first memory of James is what keeps me here, sitting on the floor in the middle of our living room smoothing hair out of a boy’s blood-spattered face.

50. How long does it take an exiled sex goddess to fall to earth?


Okay, first off, bummer to those of you who got culled, but let me tell you that there were only 9 entries that received all three judges' votes. Even when given the choice of the ones who had received only one vote, the judges couldn't agree. A fourth judge was required. Talk about subjective. So, please don't feel badly.

Since it's so obvious readers are attracted to catchy first lines, we're giving anyone who got culled the opportunity to get some feedback from the very talented follower pool at M & M. Here's how to do it. Post your first name (or an alias), give us your original first line, then tell us the premise of the opening scene. We'll see if we can't give you a few good choices.

That said. I decided to post a few "well-know" writer's first lines and let you comment on the ones that work or don't work. You're going to be surprised when I reveal the authors.


1. Max had five minutes.

2. He was never coming back.

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.

4."It would be easy to kill you while you sleep."

5. No security cameras this time, but he still has to be careful.

6. Making up a boyfriend is nothing new to me.

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.

8. she felt his breath.

Let's hear some chatter, folks.