Turning Tales Week 2: The Perfect First Sentence

Welcome to the second week of Turning Tales

This week’s writing topic: The perfect first sentence

PROMPT

The first sentence of a book opens up a whole new world. This is where your reader decides whether to follow you into this world, for two or 30 or 700 pages. Write a first sentence. Support it with up to two more sentences, if needed.
Have your fellow writers guess what kind of book that beginning might belong to …

PARTICIPATE

  • Post your contribution for this week’s prompt into this thread. Done! You automatically participate in the writing season for this week.
  • Tag your entry as a Turning Tales submission by writing PROMPT in the first line, or use the template below by clicking on the “Use template as reply” -button.
  • You can contribute until next Tuesday, October 25th, 9:00am.
  • You play a pivotal role – not just as an author, but also as a reader . Show love to your favorite contributions: Click the Like button! The one with most Likes will be crowned this week’s winner.
  • Drop some feedback for your fellow participants in here while you’re at it!
  • If your text is voted the best, you’ll be celebrated with a full year of Papyrus Author+ for yourself, or a person of your choosing.
  • On top, we’ll give away another year of Papyrus Author+ by random to one of the participants.
  • Here are the details for the writing season: Turning Tales

Have fun! :star_struck:

:bulb: Use this template to participate:

Prompt

Replace this text with your contribution

PROMPT

The memories broke through the blackness in her head like lightning.

(from “Freya & The Dark”)

10 Likes

The elevator beeped as I pushed the button for the sixth floor, but after ten floors passed, I knew I wasn’t going up.

16 Likes

Prompt

We did our best and tried to eat as much bread as we could.

6 Likes

Prompt

The wind ripped chillingly through her silver hair and burning lungs like crystalline daggers as she crested the precipice of her daunting climb.

6 Likes

You read the fairy tails as a little kid and all you think is how lucky those girls are they are princesses, the prince saves them with a true love’s kiss, and they get to live happily ever after. I mean what more could a girl want right? Then you grow up the world is less black and white, and you realize the prince would sacrifice his princess if it’s for the greater good, true love’s kiss is a lie, and you don’t need a man to save you if you learn how to do it yourself.

3 Likes

Prompt

I was in one Hell of a predicament; my ship was limping along with one engine blasted to pieces, the long-range scanner array had quit, the one remaining rail gun was very low on ammunition and if that wasn’t bad enough, I’d run out of peanuts.

Opening to Marooned.
Chuck Lumpkin

4 Likes

It was quiet in the pass now, and had been for several hours. The clashing of metal, the screams of men, and the neighing of terrified horses had lasted until just after the height of the sun.

(Opening of “Wooden Wall”)

2 Likes

She stopped digging and leaned on the rusted shovel. It was then she noticed two pairs of downward-slanted eyes staring at her through the brush.

8 Likes

Yes! The first line is the kicker, isn’t it? Reads like the beginning of one of those old detective stories.

1 Like

Prompt

Replace this text with your contribution

" I swear! it really happened, I tell you it is not gaslighting, it’s ghosts!"

3 Likes

Covered in a blanket of discarded leaves on the cold forest floor, he knew she was there, a slinking succubus waiting to strike.

8 Likes

Prompt

I hated running, but not nearly as much as the idea of dying, so I run.

6 Likes

Prompt

“All right, everyone. Listen up.” Nelly’s voice echoes down the hallway. Her heels clack against the hardwood with each step, striking like lightning, calling everyone to attention as she approaches. “I’ve got a new one to introduce to you-all, a replacement for Billy."

Tanya Dawson - Millwood Academy

5 Likes

Prompt

‘Dark … no utter blackness … lightening to charcoal … like when switching on a ultra hi-def TV waiting for connection to the internet.’ That was important … ultra hi-def … the fact that that term was still there. Though that won’t dawn on him till some minutes later … but then, Joe’s mind will be preoccupied with innumerable other things.

Opening of Ying, Yang and Sometimes Y

Pain all over thats what I feel as I wake up. I’m lying on the floor in my own blood soaked through my clothes. I’m trying to piece together what happened. Images start flashing fast in my mind as my breathing picks up. I remember Grayson coming home, dinner and wine on the table.

2 Likes

Prompt

The blood clung to her silver hair, painting the air around her with every turn of her head.

7 Likes

Prompt

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It was a dark days night, and the moon and sun caught the light.

5 Likes

I was doing my best to wake up, but it seemed to be taking an awful long time. As I inched closer and closer to being fully awake I also realized that my body was covered with all kinds of weird contraptions. …

3 Likes

Prompt

I noticed the barrel of the gun when I bent over to tie my shoe.

12 Likes