Adopt-An-Opening-Line

Under the floorboards, in the east wing of the house, Jeremy contemplated his existence.

This is the vodafone voicemail service for 077...49...please leave a message after the tone.

David stared intently at the squishy little ball trapped between his thumb and index finger, the fire raging around him momentarily forgotten.

Eep, I am so very out of practice.

How 'bout some Tom Waits for opening lines:

"It was colder than a gut shot bitch wolf dog with nine sucking pups pullin' a 4 trap up a hill in the dead of winter in the middle of a snowstorm with a mouth full of porcupine quills."

"I elbowed up at the counter with mixed feelings over mixed drinks."

"My veal cutlet come down, tried to beat the shit out of my cup of coffee; coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself."

Might I suggest the traditional all-time classic fairy tale start "Once upon a time..." for fantasy writers. It's not much but it's helped me a few times - especially in my fantasy writings recently.

"This is not the story of a cute puppy learning how to play sports."
"Garrick had finally come to realize the solution to all of his problems: he had to kill the love of his life"

...now I just need to figure out a line to start mine...

I've always loved "It was a dark and stormy night."

In the days/time before time, a hunger was born.

I died; how I died is the story - why I died: unimportant...

"I would not touch your spirit guide! You have forbidden it" - note: this line was not the opening line of Wizards First Rule by Terry Goodkind, but used in the novel.

Death grew around me, making sure that I would not escape.

There was a pretty young stewardess on a non-stop flight. (Airline Amy - Wierd Al)

Im a genius in france. (Genius in France - Wierd Al)

There's a party at the leper colony. (Party at the Leper Colony - Wierd Al)

Everytime I shake your hand now, wanna put your fingers in my mouth. (Do I creep you out - Wierd Al)

Honey, something tells me, you don't love me anymore. (You don't love me anymore - Wierd Al)

"You know it had to have been a good party when you couldn't even remember having attended it."

"It was an absolutely beautiful statue. He had truely never seen it's equal and he doubted that he ever would do so again. Didn't explain what the hell it was doing in his bathroom though."

"The world was ending. It really seemed like such a waste."

Some stuff I have scrawled down in my notebook from when inspiration hit me, but doubt I'll actually use:

Not really one line, but still...
"It was Monday, and definitely not a good day for a killing spree.

But I went on one anyway."

Also:
"She kept a notebook on her person at all times, just in case someone would say something interesting - sadly, it hadn't happened yet."

And, as an alternative to the classic...
"He was a dark and stormy knight."

"I think Max should have to call her. He's the one that got me those two crazy cousins."

"Of course I live extravagantly. I didn't murder my wife for her money just to horde it."

"They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but you'd be hard pressed to win a duel with one."

I was going to leave a fourth one, but I think I'm going to hold onto it for myself instead :)

I love the killing spree line. I'm gonna see if I can use that one. :-)

Oooh! very nice! i think i might take that one. *contemplates how it might fit with her plot* :D I'm afraid i'm not very good at coming up with opening lines, myself... it usually takes me an hour to figure out an opening sentence for a school paper... but if i come up with anything, i'll post it here.

Oooh! very nice! i think i might take that one. *contemplates how it might fit with her plot* :D I'm afraid i'm not very good at coming up with opening lines, myself... it usually takes me an hour to figure out an opening sentence for a school paper... but if i come up with anything, i'll post it here.

HERE I GO. LOOK OUT:

"'It's not me it's you' didn't even begin to sum it up."

"They called it over anxious; she/he called it 'eager not to die.'"

"A cascade of rude names and obscenities followed him/her as he/she left the room, but he/she didn't care. They were just mad because the villian always got to have more fun."

Specially written for gender neutrality!

"It wasn't every day one got to meet a woman with a neck longer than one's forearm; I knew I would have to make the most of this opportunity."

"He would have been famous, if not for that tricky incident with a book of whodunnits and a Vegas wedding chapel in '82."

"The sun rose over the town, the keep, and the drunken accordion player who somehow hadn't been thrown out of the bar until a few minutes earlier."

--

I sat in the near empty church, sighing with early morning exaugstion and attempting to listen to the sermon, but all I could think about was the fact that I was commando. It was very enlightening.

I woke up in a dumpster with a clump of my hair missing and a mouth full of peanut butter.

I'm stil afraid to ask if I did anything unusual while on the morphine. I don't remember it really affecting me at all, but for all I know I could've been running up and down the halls naked pushing old people out of wheel chairs. That's somethig I prefer to do when I'm perfectly coherent.

I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.

Which cow? The big brown and white one? Or your mom?

The world was her oyster; she hated oysters

Yay! I was reading this on the old forum a few days ago and jotted down a few ideas... for some reason, they're mostly to do with the apocalypse o.o

The world ended quite suddenly on a drizzly Thursday afternoon in March. Douglas Adams would have been proud, had the planet he was on still existed.

*

Some believe the world will end with a bang, others believe it will end with a whimper. I've seen it, and it ends with something that sounds alarmingly like a duck being stepped on.

*

In a gargantuan explosion of fire and dust and ice, the Earth, the solar system and a good chunk of the galaxy blew up. And in the resulting silence, all that could be heard was a sheepish, "Oh... bugger."

*

For some, the end of life as we know it is a cause of mass panic, repentance of sins, expectations of rising to a higher plane where perfect peace and harmony would reign for eternity. For [MC], it was a faintly inconvenient event that interrupted his 2 AM bowl of cornflakes.

*

It was the end of the world, the Apocalypse, the end of days, the day of reckoning. At least, it was for most people. For Those In Charge, it just meant filling out paperwork.

In triplicate.

Apocalypses were so inconvenient.

*

It was a stark and dormy night. [MC] was settling into her new university accommodation, and had yet to put in posters, personal belongings, or, indeed, furniture.

*

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And then he took a break, created bourbon, scratched himself, created glasses to drink the bourbon out of, and thought, "Well, this is pretty dull."

*

Time flies when you have a broadband internet connection.

*

Relativity, apparently, is relative.

Hah... I like the dark and stormy knight one... doesn't fit into my story though but its cool

"there are some things Man was not meant to know."

What a double post! Argh, etc.

I think I may have to yoink the 'dark and stormy knight' one. That's just priceless, and it fits with my idea perfectly.

But as for the actual opening line:

The sounds of Vogon poetry filled the apartment. [MC] swore.

Some things aren't worth dying for. This was one of them.

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. I have two. I suppose thats makes me a god.

The End, he thought, what a perfect place to start.

When in the course of unhuman events . . .

Oh wow, people like my lines. :D

I really like that.

But it makes you wonder: how can the one-eyed man be king in the land of the blind? How would anyone know that he wasn't simply lying about his eye? And the people wouldn't be able to tell if he WAS lying, either, because even if they brought him an object and asked him to describe it, they couldn't exactly say that he was wrong...

This is so interesting! I may re-work it and use it as my opening. :)