# Opening Line Prompts



## Selorian (Apr 8, 2021)

While I was on Twitter, I started a hashtag I called Story Starters that were basically opening line prompts. I thought something like that could be fun to do here. They can be used as is anywhere in a story or just as inspiration. I'll start with a couple to get things going.


*The Inner Circle of Hell is being locked within one's own mind.*


*In the junkyard he was a god, creating life from the bits and pieces others thought were useless.*


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## Kyle R (Apr 8, 2021)

Fun idea! I'll toss a few out there.
*
- Her leg was the first thing to disappear, vanishing just below her knee, in a puff of smoke.*


*- He heard it in the living room, in his bathroom, even through the floorboards under his bed.*


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## VRanger (Apr 8, 2021)

My latest was:

"You'll recognize this truth: From time to time in your life, you make a mistake when you know better."

But it's really a set up for the whole opening:

"You'll recognize this truth: From time to time in your life, you make a mistake when you know better. You didn't take the precaution you knew to take. You didn't follow the rule you made for yourself and it cost you. You fantasize about returning to that moment and doing it the right way. But you can't, and you have to live with it.

I almost failed to live."


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## Selorian (Apr 9, 2021)

*- Every fall his skin turned various splendid shades and fell away like the leaves.

- For Crest Falls to maintain its small town charm required a large cemetery.*


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## Foxee (Apr 9, 2021)

Jackson leapt out of bed, placing his feet where the floor should be.


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## Selorian (Apr 11, 2021)

*- Roots twisted in an effort to hold the struggling corpse within its century old grave.*


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## Kent_Jacobs (Apr 11, 2021)

One more swing and I'd reach the bars.


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## SueC (Apr 11, 2021)

My watch had stopped and I arrived in time to see the take off.


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## Kent_Jacobs (Apr 11, 2021)

As the bricks tied around my ankles pulled me to the river bed, I wondered if I'd turned the gas off.

I tightened the thin, rubber tubing around my upper forearm, and with a thumb said goodbye.


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## indianroads (Apr 11, 2021)

It was hell's season, and the air smelled of burning children. (Robert McCammon, Gone South)

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five)

It was a pleasure to burn. (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)


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## SueC (Apr 11, 2021)

Opening Line Prompts: This might make a fun comp on WF (this is not a prompt LOL)


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## Phil Istine (Apr 11, 2021)

TheMightyAz said:


> One more swing and I'd reach the bars.



I used to call it going up to the bumps.

One of mine was: "God wobbles on a barstool in the Crazy Angels saloon."


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## Selorian (Apr 11, 2021)

indianroads said:


> It was hell's season, and the air smelled of burning children. (Robert McCammon, Gone South)
> 
> Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five)
> 
> It was a pleasure to burn. (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)



Some good ones in there. The opening line for Stephen King's Dark Tower: The Gunslinger is one that stands out for me. This thread was actually more for opening lines created to be used as prompts by others, not ones from published work (always good for examples though).



SueC said:


> Opening Line Prompts: This might make a fun comp on WF (this is not a prompt LOL)



That could be fun.


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## VRanger (Apr 11, 2021)

Selorian said:


> This thread was actually more for opening lines created to be used as prompts by others, not ones from published work



Ok, I didn't get that, so let's give it a try:

"I always approached cooking with confidence until the night I decided to prepare a dessert I now refer to as terror misu."

"I curse the fortune cookie that told me the safest way to get the most bang for my buck was to splurge on fireworks."

"I should never have let the line of birds staring down at me from the power wire remind me of Hitchcock."


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 11, 2021)

The metal door handle was wet with condensation in the cold night air, another reason I hadn't wanted to take hold of it.


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## Selorian (Apr 12, 2021)

*- I’ve always considered myself a reasonably sane and intelligent individual, but I've recently come to question that belief.*


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## Kent_Jacobs (Apr 12, 2021)

He reached out forever, a dead man with a story to tell, knuckles a range of snow-capped mountains on the horizon.


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## Foxee (Apr 12, 2021)

Ramshackle, black-hearted, and built like a tank, she was a bad idea that Morris couldn't stop thinking about.


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 12, 2021)

From my story,

There are many places a story can begin,but it is traditional to start with an arrival ...


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## Selorian (Apr 14, 2021)

*- Time shifted and the room changed, becoming darker and grittier than it was just a moment before.

- Midnight was the hour of my birth and will be the hour of my death.*


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## Foxee (Apr 14, 2021)

No one tells you things that matter, no one tells you that your heart can be hacked.


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 15, 2021)

Where sky met sea there was a something that was neither, he could not tell what yet.


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## Selorian (Apr 15, 2021)

*- She felt like early morning frost; clinging to anything in hope of just surviving the day.*


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## Theglasshouse (Apr 15, 2021)

His brother and sister tried to find their way home walking the forest trail. He then heard a pack of wolves, and he took off in the Eskimo sledge.

Or maybe:
He, and his brother, and sister walked home, and then he took off in the sledge after he heard a pack of wolves.


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## Selorian (Apr 16, 2021)

*-  The straight and narrow was never a route I cared for.*

*-  My shadow lunged at me, attempting to take back what I had stolen from it.*


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## Foxee (Apr 16, 2021)

Ants of apprehension danced under my clothes as I opened the closet door to the darkness that spilled out.


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## bazz cargo (Apr 16, 2021)

What kind of person are you?


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## Selorian (Apr 19, 2021)

*- The wind whipped the trees into a frenzied dance of macabre-looking silhouettes outside the window.*


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## Foxee (Apr 19, 2021)

Pushing, shoving, and begging did nothing to stop the stream of corn from the hole I'd knocked in the silo, it was a nightmare of corn abrading my palms and rushing over my legs.


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 19, 2021)

They are coming, I can see them in the distance, and there is little I can do now but await their arrival.


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## Matchu (Apr 19, 2021)

The ship sailed sail on the ship ship sailed sea ship at sea on the ship fukkin draft 9


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## EternalGreen (Apr 19, 2021)

They will bury me beneath the violets, and I cannot stop them.


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## Kent_Jacobs (Apr 20, 2021)

My boyfriend told me I had the body of a sixteen year old, but he didn't know it was in the cellar.


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## Selorian (Apr 21, 2021)

*- He was a small town newspaper reporter in over his head on what could be a global conspiracy.*


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## Kent_Jacobs (Apr 21, 2021)

Speedy is a big, fat, ugly spider, and I'm the willing fly.


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## Selorian (Apr 22, 2021)

*- Feet are evil things. They take us where we want to go, but they also lead us to places we should never be.*


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 22, 2021)

It was the worst of coffee mornings, it was the best of coffee mornings.


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## Riptide (Apr 23, 2021)

I sold my soul for cookies, but they were chocolate chip and so very worth it.

"I remember the curfew, mom. I'm already home," Riley said, knee deep in a swamp several miles from home.

We built the North Side brick by brick. We ain't use the fake shit, either, that's the real stuff.


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## Selorian (Apr 23, 2021)

*- I never believed in fate until that day.*


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 23, 2021)

Reluctant as he was to believe in the supernatural, he was clean out of rational explanations.


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## Kent_Jacobs (Apr 23, 2021)

A pin in the latest butterfly, Graham crossed 'Mary Becket' off his list.


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## Serendipity (Apr 24, 2021)

Here is mine:

"I remember my mother’s house on Bayview Drive in its various states of ramshackle, demolition and reconstruction."


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## Selorian (Apr 26, 2021)

*- The storm of emotions within him rivaled the ferocity of the brewing hurricane outside.

- The slingshot hit the ground at the same moment the boy in the tree who had been teasing him landed on the picket fence.*


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## Foxee (Apr 26, 2021)

A thin strip of grass that Bob liked to call 'The Brazilian' ran to the round pool that had stilled Marietta's objections forever.


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## LCLee (Apr 26, 2021)

Each cell fell prey to a nanobot replacement.


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 27, 2021)

Winston hated these newfangled striking twenty four hour clocks, from now until midnight it would just get worse.

It is a lie, rarely denied, that an insolvent married man wishes for a rich mistress.


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## Selorian (Apr 27, 2021)

*- The carefully crafted wall he'd built to guard the secrets of his private life came tumbling down with three little words.

**- Three times in his life he had pleaded for death. This time he was surprised to hear himself pleading for life.*


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## Selorian (Apr 30, 2021)

*- Nine fingers clawed at his boots as he slipped off the ring, slid it in his pocket, and tossed the bloody digit into the grave.*


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## Foxee (Apr 30, 2021)

She propped the letter against the mantel-clock, trying to ignore its hollow tick as she shouldered her pack and let herself out for good.


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 30, 2021)

Not the ticking letter! .... Oops no, I see


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## Kent_Jacobs (Apr 30, 2021)

Henry suspected something was wrong when he saw two nurses lugging a ladder into the maternity ward, huffing like a white locomotive.


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## Foxee (Apr 30, 2021)

Olly Buckle said:


> Not the ticking letter! .... Oops no, I see


Oh hush, you. That's the title of the book!


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## RachelR (May 3, 2021)

“What a lovely baby,” Isabelle lied.

“There are no such things as ghosts,” William said, and the ghost standing in the back of the room scowled at him.


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## Folcro (May 4, 2021)

This opening line was stuck in my head for a long time before I found the perfect place for it:

*They say the end of the world began when the president if the United States shot himself on national television.*


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## Selorian (May 4, 2021)

*- Brevity wasn't one of her strong points when ranting and raving, but it was one of his when it came to listening to her.*


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## Selorian (May 5, 2021)

*- The haunting melody ebbed and flowed throughout the house, beckoning all who heard to dance to its rising and falling rhythm.*


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## Foxee (May 5, 2021)

Bracing for the cold of an empty house, I opened the door to the warm embrace of air scented with pasta and spices instead.


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## Riptide (May 6, 2021)

I have a line I keep rearranging for the beginning:

A lot of people wrongly fear death when it's the act of dying that's rightfully scary.


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## bdcharles (May 6, 2021)

Soda Jones was the woman who sped up.

*

"Quick, someone fetch him a twiddling syrup!"


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## Selorian (May 6, 2021)

*- Having grown up in the Deep South, people automatically discount me as soon as they hear me talk.*


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## Selorian (May 7, 2021)

*- "Keep the damn dog," she hissed, dragging her luggage out the door. "He requires too much attention, just like you!"*


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## Selorian (May 11, 2021)

*- The weight of the pistol grew with the realization of what he'd done.*


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## Selorian (May 12, 2021)

*- Somehow his harmless charade to save face had turned into a fifteen year marriage.*


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## Selorian (May 14, 2021)

*- Dawn broke on the first day after the end of the world to reveal some things had carried on.*


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## Selorian (May 17, 2021)

*- Reality bent, stretched, realigned, and then finally broke.*


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## Foxee (May 17, 2021)

Jason had sailed through three stoplights in varying shades of red when his eyes went wide behind mirrored aviators and he slammed on the brakes in a four-wheeled skid.


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## Selorian (May 31, 2021)

Death typically came in threes but sometimes it would be greedy and take an extra person or two.


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