Story beginnings, take three

[mabfan]

All right, so here's one more contest to win a Tuckerization, and one that's a little more open-ended.

Post a first line to a story you'd like to see me write. I will choose one that appeals to me, and in that story, I will Tuckerize the person who gave me that line. If that story sells, presto! You've been Tuckerized.

The contest will stay open until Wednesday night at 8 PM. Enter as often as you like. I reserve the right to name one winner, more than one winner, or no winners (just in case).

If you are saxikath, you are ineligible. :-)

Comments

[saxikath]

Can I give you suggestions anyway, without entering the contest? :)

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Sure, go ahead. Maybe I'll use it for the one you've already won.

[saxikath]

I could not for the life of me remember where I had put my passport.

[running-girl4.livejournal.com]

Through the darkness, of the early morning creped a fearsome looking creature. Her coat glistened in the dull light.

OK I gave it my best shot. I'll try again tomorrow.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

This is a pretty good opening. It does create story questions: Who or what is the creature? What does it want?

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

It wasn't so very long ago. But it's been forgotten anyway.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Now this is a very good entry for this contest, for the following reason. The idea behind the opening lines is to find one that appeals to me, and nrivkis has hit upon one of my standard themes -- the transitory nature of memory. Stories such as "Kaddish for the Last Survivor," "Paying It Forward," and "Time Ablaze" are all about my obsession with whether or not the future will remember us, and how. An opening line such as this one shows a good understanding of what I would go for.

[zmook.livejournal.com]

It's also a damned fine opening line -- unpretentious but intriguing, implying the narrator's feeling of injustice done.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

*grin* I think I had something of "Kaddish for the Last Survivor" in my head when I wrote this, though I didn't consciously realize it at the time.

[zmook.livejournal.com]

It was the frog that first caught my attention.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Frogs! zmook is obviously responding to my recent quiz post -- and where's the rest of the people posting what kind of frog they are, huh? I'd like to have started a significant meme...

As it is, I did start a story once where frogs played a major part. Didn't get anywhere, unfortunately.

[zmook.livejournal.com]

Actually, that was a remarkable coincidence. I was catching up backward through LJ and hadn't seen your cryptic frog quiz results yet.

[blzblack.livejournal.com]

The Mundanes had become a laboratory of evolutionary change.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Which of course leads one to wonder: who are the Mundanes?

[blzblack.livejournal.com]

Are you asking? Or are you saying for story purposes?

In SF, of course, for one obvious connotation, Mundane is anything not gosh-wow, and a group of Mundanes...

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

One shot to the head was all it took, all that was usually required.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

You know, this would be a great opening to the novel I'll be writing, if I weren't already planning to open it with "We need you to kill a man."

Then again...

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Five marigolds later, the experiment worked.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

The port was still burning, but even now he couldn't look away.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of Neuromancer, where the port above the sky is the color of a television set tuned to a dead channel...

[agracru.livejournal.com]

"Delay your death," he said, "I want to tell you a story."

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Reminds me a little bit of a quiet but very well done episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Half a Life," about a society where people who turn 60 voluntarily have themselves euthenized. They end their lives with a big party called a resolution, gathering all their family and friends. David Ogden Stiers plays a scientist who is convinced by Lwuxana Troi to challenge the tradition, but in the end realizes that he's not the one to make such a drastic break with his society.

[running-girl4.livejournal.com]

As I fell silently through the dark void, a small pin of light moved toward me.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Why does this make me think of Alice falling down the rabbit-hole?

[arib.livejournal.com]

The door swung open, I looked up from my computer, sighed and said, "again?!"

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Hey, arib, are you sure this isn't taken from real life? :-)

[somehedgehog.livejournal.com]

"On a sunny Sunday afternoon in July, at a rest stop just off US-1, Jessica cut a deal with the Devil."

(This is just an adaptation of the best opening line I think I ever wrote, which was an academic paper on witchcraft during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I - "In the early seventeenth century, in the Pendle Forest of Lancaster, England, Elizabeth Southerns sold her soul to the Devil. "

[somehedgehog.livejournal.com]

By the way, I realize I'm probably ineligible for Tuckerization, seeing as I've already had the honor, but I can't resist participating for the fun of it.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Well, you could still play. After all, Tuckerizations are usually just using the name. In "Escape Horizon," I used both your name and description!

[somehedgehog.livejournal.com]

Well, I just accidentally posted as Jake. So you'll probably get a very confusing comment in your inbox. I'm a dork!

But yes, I consider myself very lucky to have been Tuckerized in more ways than one. Now I can just play for fun!

[cellio]

A hand-written journal was the thing I least expected to find in my father's personal effects.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

This does a very good job of creating a story question...

[cellio]

Questions are easy. It's the answers that can be challenging. :-) Here, have another:

The blinking light on the Caller ID drew his eye immediately -- 8 calls from the same unfamiliar number, no messages.

[cellio]

As I watched the hands crawl slowly across the clock face -- a real clock, not one of those newfangled digital things with no soul -- I sighed, finally admitting that I could put this off no longer.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

...and this one also creates an interesting story question.

[sethg]

If this is what they do at his bris, Bernie thought, I'm afraid to find out what they'll do at the bar mitzvah.

[magid.livejournal.com]

"What I need," he said to the form in the corner, "is a really good idea for a story."

[magid.livejournal.com]

A Key. A Key might get them out of here.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I sighed, and wondered for the fourth time today why I'd thought getting out of bed this afternoon was a good idea.

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

"Your lucky number is 37185937629586738," declared the fat little man. "Look for it everywhere."

Well, I'll try

[lordavon.livejournal.com]

I watched as the stars fell from the sky, leaving my world in darkness for the second time.

Re: Well, I'll try

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...

This seems to have come through after deadline. At least, it wasn't here when I loaded the page at 8 PM.

Save it for next time!