Well folks, despite my giving out the wrong email address and my internet/phone/and email going down yesterday, here are your fifty first lines. A copy has been sent to the three judges. Feel free to give your opinion, nicely, of course. And pardon the formatting. Sometimes WORD drives me crazy and I wasn't about to recopy each of these. Here you are. Good luck, everyone.
1. The stench of blood can ruin a spring morning.
2. "For decades to follow, the 1955 hatchet murder of a taxi driver on a snow-covered hill in the historic enclave of Northport, Long Island, would affect the lives of three strangers: an eleven-year-old girl; a “Negro” migrant farm worker; and a cop who hadn’t even been born yet: me."
3. Friggen appropriate, the bathroom door opens and my life goes down the toilet.
4. The rain came down in a drizzle, enough of a nuisance to interfere with their mission.
5. The night Luisa Salinas gave birth to the man now facing his executioner, the drug violence had started seeping across the great river to prey on the border towns
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.
9. Give me ten minutes with that sweet ass of yours and I’ll have you begging for mercy.”
10. The crime scene was awash in blood, its warm, coppery scent mixing with the fresh odor of rain that had fallen during the night
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.
16. I tend to be an impulsive person.
17. A new guy in town?
18, “We’re moving the day after school ends for the summer,” her mother announced.
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.
24, Bridget Grainger would have a book burning party that very evening with as many Ian MacKenzie novels as she could find.
25. Am I the biggest card-carrying loser magnet in the world or what?
26. "It's not the end of the world."
27. The cobalt sheen of the water beckoned Gemini, and she wondered again why the lure to push her boundaries and edge her body into the cool Atlantic Ocean—the forbidden sea whose shore was her home—could not be ignored.
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.
30. Not no, but hell no,” Maggie said as they stood behind the stage in the massive ballroom of the Marriott hotel in downtown Dallas.
31. The young witch stood in the vacant lot, eyes closed as if in prayer.
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."
34. "Turn me loose, vile demons of Hell."
35. Good till the Last One Drops.
36. "Goldthirsty," Za shrieked at her reflection.
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.
39. When she found him he would be dead meat.
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.
45. Brenda Leary watched sixteen nervous parents tow eight edgy babies
into the first floor classroom at Foundations Toddler School for their
playgroup interview.
46. The elevator doors opened facing the sign for Children’s Psychiatry and Seth Bellingham froze
47. Laurel Jenkins broke out in a sweat as she flipped three calendar pages ahead to her January birth date.
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?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
21 comments:
Lots of great lines! My personal favorites are numbers 29, 43, & 50
Great first lines...this is wonderful!
Lynn
Six and thirty-three really jumped out at me. Six sparked one of those sudden laugh out loud moments and thirty-three intrigues me. Of course, I'd keep reading on several others of these.
So, we're back to that judges' subjectivity thing we discussed yesterday! At least we don't have 16 points that we have to evaluate them on :) Oh, and Liz, you'll note that very few of them achieved sexual tension in the first line and I'm not sure if any of their vans have windows, LOL.
Great contest and lots of light hearted fun. I loved the first lines. My favs "Camels." It's not mine but it made me wonder what was coming next - lol. They were truthfully all great and made me smile - espcially that smackin' glove girl who should have studied makeup instead of dead people - again great!
Katt, Lynn, Debbie, and Renee, thanks for playing so early this morning. Since I'm being subjective, I can't offer my favs, but I will say this. I once went to a Donald Maass workshop (best money I ever spent, BTW) and he asked us to read our first line to the class, then he asked the rest of us if we wanted to read the rest of the book based on that line. It was a real eye opener.
Whether you use dialogue, narrative or even introspection, that first line has to be a grabber. I would tell you to read every one of these lines and decide if you want to read more.
Again, good luck to all you guys who entered. The decision is in the hands of the three very capable judges as we speak. But remember, if you get culled, it doesn't mean your book is bad, it means you might want to take another look at your first line...or that judging is really subjective!! LOL and we're back to square one.
Debbie, LOL on the van window and the sexual tension. As a sidenote, I did go back and put in a d**n window!!! I had the heroine glance out of it in her panic to figure out where they were taking her.
Does that disqualify all my whining
about it?
What an awesome selection of opening lines! My favorites are 6, 13, 43
#6 - Because I'm a good girl, do what I'm told and always figured it would get me in the end.
#13 - Because I have a cousin and a brother like this. It's amazing I made it this far (see above)
#43 - Because the story it conjured in my brain made me laugh out loud.
These are my personal choices, however, and wouldn't likely be my picks if I were an agent. Another example of how subjective the process is/can be.
I love 29. Few words with heavy impact. Although I'm definitely a big fan of "Camels", too.
What fun! I applaud you ladies on narrowing what must have been difficult choices down to a mere fifty.
My personal favorites are 1, 8 and, of course, 12, although I don't believe the term, "rude," could ever be applied to me.
Thanks for hosting, this is a great idea. Here are my favorites:
1. It just sounds like something I would read. Whose blood? I like when something sparks questions in my mind.
3. I love the voice in this one.
14. Also sounds like something I would read.
23. What do they want? I need to know.
and 49. Looks like we are already in the action and I would like to know more.
I enjoyed most of these and would keep reading, but I had to pick favorites.
After all our talk about contests yesterday, I just have to share. I just got word that the ST I revised into a category and entered in the Daphnes is a finalist! Woo HOo.
The funny thing is that I left off the first line, the one I entered here and was sure it wouldn't final because it wouldn't make sense. GO FIGURE!
Was there a limit on the number of lines we could love?
#3--what a fun narrator to spend a book with.
#4--I want to know what their mission is.
#11--Scary! This is going to be a suspenseful ride.
#19--another fun narrator--and this one will feature weapons!
#28--Old women, Voodoo, fear--I'm so into this.
#44--Another interesting narrator, with terror.
What stands out to me is how different everyone's choices are, and that there are no ostriches. What a fun idea for a blog sequence. Thanks, had a great time reading these.
Oh wow. How will you choose?
VK - I'm always amazed at how two people can read the same thing and get something entirely different in the translation. Good thing we have THREE judges.
Gin - I'm with you, I like the high impact, short sentences, but sometimes, I find people overuse those in their wips. They are definitely for high drama.
Hey, Wolfgang, you're right. Nobody could ever say you were rude!! Good to see you again.
Charity, Lyn, and Kimberly, what fun to see everyone's favorites. It's going to be even more fun to see the last line and to try to pick out the first line that go with it.
Debbie, OMG! Congrats on the Daphne final. That's a very prestigious contest with unbelievable competition. Fingers crossed for a win. Who's the final judge?
Liz: For category finals: Patience Smith, Silhouette Intimate Moments & Michelle Grajkowski, Three Seas Literary Agency are the final judges.
Debbie
Lots of great first lines. Good luck to all. . I'm a newbie follower and amazed at the enthusiastic participation.
I so much want her as an agent. Am I too late?
Here's my first sentence, just in case.
On a warm autumn morning in West Virginia, the Cheat River continued its course as Sam Austin's head beat against the rocky shore.
My favorites were 1 and 33. It was really interesting.
Debbie, wow, Patience and Michelle. Fingers crossed for you. Keep us updated.
Theresa, we love newbies. You take everything we say as gospel!!
Cher'ley, as I've already told you in a private email, "Sorry, Charley." I loved Charley Tuna! Anyway, go to the W.Va conference and stalk Christine!!
I think they are all great first lines. Sorry but I don't have a favorite.
Good luck to everyone.
I'm gonna have to go with "Camels."
I'm already picturing Indy: "Snakes. I hate snakes."
And the missing underwear! Cracked me up.
Post a Comment