And a third one I have. This is actually the new opening section from the bit I posted earlier. Ended up starting the story in a different place, hence the change. Anyway
Stabbing Baron Cecil Renshaw once hadn’t been enough the first time. Every time after, Coryn was able to watch the light go out in the brown-furred mink’s eyes, but even death was not enough. Every time after, she stabbed her husband until his stomach turned into a red ruin, and he was barely even making involuntary sounds.
I’m planning on this being the first line in one of the next stories I’m writing:
“I shouldn’t be here.”
You could do a whole anthology just based on that.
Ocean’s next anthology, perhaps?
Stabbing the Baron once hadn’t been enough. So Coryn stabbed her husband again, and again. Not even watching the light go out in the mink’s eyes was enough. Not even death was enough.
She stabbed until the fur of his stomach had gone from brown mink to red ruin, and he had stopped making even involuntary sounds.
I thought that was abandoned places?
While we’re workshopping good opening lines here, I’ll remind everyone there is this thread for anyone who wishes to share the worst opening lines you can come up with.
Thanks Bahamut! Anybody else got something they want to workshop?
Favorite opening hooks of mine tend to be short interrogatives to bring the reader immediately into some action to figure out why the question was asked.
Pretty cliche, but it works.
“Do you think you’ve made a difference?”
Are these first lines from something you’ve written?
How about the opening of my sci-fi teaser?
“[i]CS Hanging Gardens[/i] reporting all go for fold,” the voice crackled over the intercom speaker.
Presuming that the setting of the story is the “CS Hanging Gardens”, I don’t think the speaker would specify the ship name.
If it was a command/control/traffic place though, like a space station, that would work.
I’d want to see the next few lines to figure out how much of a start that’s going to give me as a reader. It does, at least, set up a science-fiction universe where faster than light travel is possible. (Though not all readers will understand the context of ‘fold’ without explanation.)
Looks like the hook for the target audience was on point! ^.^
It’s a sci-fi novel teaser, and I’m writing it from a mid sci-fi standpoint. Some of the tech and such will be explained, but it’s assuming that the reader is a reader of sci-fi and knows some basics. giggles
Thank you. I can post a few more lines if you’d really like to see.