Post the first 3 sentences of your WIP!

[Namatu]

This I started many years ago and have put in a file, but it entertains me at least, though it's adverb crazy and the sentences are far too long (yes, it's just three down there).

Stuey sat in the rigid, black, plastic chair with a cushion that cushioned nothing, especially not the boney bones in his arse, and stared blankly and longingly out the dirt streaked window. The window didn't open so he could only use his too infrequently challenged imagination to hear the cars whizzing by on the busy highway, their tires kicking up dust and pebbles and the occasional large rock that, had Stuey been driving, would have surely cracked the windshield of his '87 Honda Accord. But since he was inside, slouched in his uncomfortable chair in the blue and green checked button-up his mother had given him two Christmases ago, Stuey and his car were safe and he could instead imagine the freedom of hurtling down that stretch of open road, his windows rolled down, fresh polluted air circling around him, while the heat of the hazy sun beat down on the hood of his jalopy with roasting intent.

And from a short story:

Life was a crapshoot. So far, Piney’d survived the past twelve years out of sheer dumb luck. He’d never been any good at craps, and it was only a matter of time until it all came to an end. Still, he’d like to have thought it would come to a better end than it had.

[The_Grand_Duchess]

I wanna play! Can I? Huh? Can I?

In the gray lands, somewhere between here and someplace that simply isn’t, the caravan moved slowly between the bare and rocky cliffs. At its head was a woman, bent over guiding an old and tired horse. No part of her could be seen, covered as she was by a graying black cloak but it was a woman to be sure.

[BlueBadger]

It's not the diction, it's not the names, it's not anything except for clarity when it comes to hooking me.

I dunno if that's directed towards me, but rest assured I'm not relying on my characters' names to hook my readers. XD

[Devil Ledbetter]

I applaud everyone who stopped at the third sentence.

[JoNightshade]

Originally Posted by BlueBadger

I dunno if that's directed towards me, but rest assured I'm not relying on my characters' names to hook my readers. XD

No worries, Blue! Actually I didn't mean "fancy" names, I meant profusion of names. Along with long sentences, another thing that turns me off is having three or four people mentioned in the first 3 sentences. I just opened this book and I have to make friends with a whole crowd?! ::Stress overload for the introvert::

[Manat]

Hmmm. This is an interesting exercise. I have three and despite the fact they're very different books I can see I open them all in the same way. Why have I never noticed that before? Might be time to try something different.



Gabriel crouched on bended knee, hunched against cold stone above an ancient alley fetid with the smell of piss, vomit, and cooked sausage. A door slammed in the distance, and the sound of cursing, a man’s, and then a woman’s, was followed by slaps, screams, and then silence. Far away, the sound of a guitar drifted to him, melancholy in the cold night air.

Night envelopes the coast, pregnant and still, save for the silent flitting of hunting birds, and the panicked rustle and squeak of their desperate prey. The mournful call of a buoy sounds in the distance, muffled by a creeping bank of fog that all but obscures a lone house, huddled on the promontory below. The moon, a heavy globe of silver light hovering over a blue-black horizon, paints a ghostly highway, stretching across the rippling water, cutting through cloud and mist and stopping at the door.

Jamie Sinclair pushed back his visor and surveyed the field. The air was crisp, sharp with the acrid smell of smoke and the bitter taste of winter. A cold sleet was falling, and icy drops of water slithered down his back.

[BlueBadger]

No worries, Blue! Actually I didn't mean "fancy" names, I meant profusion of names. Along with long sentences, another thing that turns me off is having three or four people mentioned in the first 3 sentences. I just opened this book and I have to make friends with a whole crowd?! ::Stress overload for the introvert::

Haha, I definitely know where you're coming from. I'm bad with names, even in books. You definitely have some good advice about short sentences. I prefer them in most cases, but "opening" a chapter with a quick hit is preferable to something that runs on. I'll try it when I write my second draft!

[Esopha]

Here's three lines from my WIP, plus some extra because otherwise they make no sense:

"It's locked, Liza." he said, running his hands over the brass lock. "Locked, did you hear? That means I can't open it."

"You have lock picks, don't you?" said Liza. The voice came from behind a pillow.

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

Wrote this yesterday. Entitled: "How to Get Things Out From Behind Bars."


To order something at a bar--usually a drink, but not always--you go up to the bar--if there is one, sometimes it’s just a counter--and tell whoever’s there (no, not the man guarding the chip bowl from freak pigeon attacks, you mustn’t speak to him), you go up to the bar and you tell him what it is you would like to drink. Any kind (they’ll have it), and usually many more besides.



Then it goes on about a guy not being able to post bail. He's not getting out from behind bars any time soon.

[Shady Lane]

Originally Posted by Devil Ledbetter

I applaud everyone who stopped at the third sentence.

Hush you.

[Shady Lane]

Originally Posted by jdparadise

Amen to that!

Absolutely. That was hilarious.

[JoNightshade]

Okay, based on what I've learned from this thread, I have revised the intro from my current WIP (not the one I initially posted). Does this grab?

"Every time Timothy went home, he prayed. Things like Please let Dad sleep through the night and Don’t let Owen be cutting himself again. Mostly, those prayers were in vain."

I know, I just used two names. I almost used three but then I took my own advice. :P

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

Originally Posted by Devil Ledbetter

I applaud everyone who stopped at the third sentence.

Mine is technically only two. Unfortunately, the first one is ridiculously long.

[Shady Lane]

Originally Posted by JoNightshade

Okay, based on what I've learned from this thread, I have revised the intro from my current WIP (not the one I initially posted). Does this grab?

"Every time Timothy went home, he prayed. Things like Please let Dad sleep through the night and Don’t let Owen be cutting himself again. Mostly, those prayers were in vain."

I know, I just used two names. I almost used three but then I took my own advice. :P

I really like the first two. The second, for some reason, just doesn't do it for me. Maybe "prayers were in vain" is just too cliche, and just sums it all up a little too easily. Don't tell us the prayers were in vain, show us, even if you can't do it in three sentences.

[Will Lavender]

Here are the first four from my WIP The Instruction Manual. I'm currently about two and a half pages in.

Recently, Dr. Shahar Arzy of University Hospital in Geneva was treating a woman for epilepsy. In this treatment, Dr. Arzy applied something called focal electrical stimulation to his patient’s brain. The stimulation occurred on the left temporoparietal junction, which is the part of the brain responsible for making the distinction between reality and what researchers have called the "shadow world" of the mind.

Something bizarre happened during this procedure.

[job]

>>short sentences DO IT<<<

You got it.


Clarity.
Short, sharp phrases.
Vivid solid images.
Simplicity.
character VOICE.

A great and overwhelming absence of adjectives,
especially
-- God forbid --
double barrelled adjectives like
'jumpily benighted camels'
and 'cozily ensconced assassins'.

And if you must have characters named K'ruskito Har Bath-th!kk,
(must you?)
just call him 'Rusty the Krink' on the first page.

If you are seized with an overwhelming urge to make your trees emblazon themselves, stark and livid, moon-splattered, against the blue-purple cloak of sky flung over the countryside that was mid-winter Wales in this December of 1564 ...
resist.

[BlueBadger]

Job, if I had the courage, I'd ask you to beta read my novel once it's done ... oh shoot, looks like I just did.

Not that I have anything worth presenting yet, anyway.

[job]

Originally Posted by Namatu

Okay, I just put this in my cart at Amazon. What genre am I buying? .

Oh wow. Thank you so much.
I am going to start the copy edits of it tomorow ... (g)

It's a historical spy story,
Napoleonic War Era.
Being marketed as Romance, I think.

I consider it my 'moral dilemmas' book.

[Namatu]

Originally Posted by job

Oh wow. Thank you so much.
I am going to start the copy edits of it tomorow ... (g)

It's a historical spy story,
Napoleonic War Era.
Being marketed as Romance, I think.

I consider it my 'moral dilemmas' book.

Cool. I like romance, and I love spies. Hard to find good ones (romances and spy stories). Edit fast!

And if you must have characters named K'ruskito Har Bath-th!kk,
(must you?)

I mustn't? Poor K'rusk. Or Ito. He has many nicknames. He'll be so disappointed when I rename him Bob.

[Will Lavender]

Originally Posted by JoNightshade

Okay, based on what I've learned from this thread, I have revised the intro from my current WIP (not the one I initially posted). Does this grab?

"Every time Timothy went home, he prayed. Things like Please let Dad sleep through the night and Don’t let Owen be cutting himself again. Mostly, those prayers were in vain."

I know, I just used two names. I almost used three but then I took my own advice. :P

I like it. I don't mind "in vain," either.

[Devil Ledbetter]

Originally Posted by job

oooh. Yes. Yes. Me too!

Once you get a taste for thievery, you never lose it. Papa used to say that, clouting her on the side of the head a bit to let her know who he was talking about.
She missed picking pockets.

An interesting set up, but I'm still scratching my head at "clouting her on the side of the head a bit." How does one clout "a bit"?

Did you mean softly or gently, but choose a bit in your zeal to avoid adverbs?

I would think "gave her a little clout on the head" would be more clear.

[Will Lavender]

Originally Posted by Devil Ledbetter

An interesting set up, but I'm still scratching my head at "clouting her on the side of the head a bit." How does one clout "a bit"?

Did you mean softly or gently, but choose a bit in your zeal to avoid adverbs?

I would think "gave her a little clout on the head" would be more clear.

Makes sense to me. "A bit" is short for "a little bit," which is just another way to say "softly." At least that's how we talk in the American South.

[Devil Ledbetter]

Originally Posted by Will Lavender

Makes sense to me. "A bit" is short for "a little bit," which is just another way to say "softly." At least that's how we talk in the American South.

Ah, I see. Here in the American north, a bit is a measurement of amount or time, and perhaps frequency, but not of force for an individual blow. So while I could rub your back a bit, I couldn't clout you a bit.

[jodiodi]

Well, I counted up yesterday, and I have 11 projects at various stages (from mere ideas to getting ready for the 2nd or 3rd draft). Here are a few samples (some of which, some of you have seen already):

• The air was chilled, though the Marshal did not mind; the mountains shielded them from the worst of the icy winds which sometimes blew south from the northern wastes. Movement caught his attention and at first, the golden-haired warrior was unsure if his eyes were deceiving him. The female who appeared out of the darkness of the mountains did not appear affected by the cold though she wore only a loose, diaphanous gown of an iridescent shade, perhaps white, pale lavender or silver. He could see her fair skin through the light and airy cloth and thought she must surely be ill or desperate to be out in the cold without at least a cloak.
  
• There was someone in the room again. She couldn't see who it was, but could feel the bed move, feel someone touching her, holding her. She tried to open her eyes, but it felt like they were glued shut.
  
• “Well, your mama’s dead.”
  
  The voice at the other end of the telephone line said the words in a matter-of-fact way. The southern accent, so thick she thought she had misunderstood it, immediately called up memories of home.
  
• The room was pitch black and the sound of wind howling outside came through the thick walls of the palace. There should be candles, but she could find none. Her eyes strained in the darkness to find the source of her discomfort. Something threatened her child.
  
• The silent warrior stood on the balcony, watching the clouds rolling in from the East. The wind blew the silky strands of his hair about his face and the night grew cold. He could smell the coming rain, but he felt something more was riding in with the storm.
  
• The first gasp was incredibly painful and her fingers clutched the ground spasmodically. Her body felt as if it no longer remembered how to breathe and even the muscles that controlled her eyes seemed to be in rebellion. It took a moment to shake off the grogginess though the confusion remained.
  
• The group of men gathered in the dark, vast hall watched as the pakra, the holy man, lifted the knife, uttering words in the ancient language of his line. He called upon the gods, though which ones they could not say, then brought the blade down swiftly, plunging into the belly of the young slave lying bound to the stone altar.
  
  The knife went deep, severing the large vessel which carried blood from the heart and throughout the body.
  
• It was the same man. Was he following her? Well, obviously, since this was the third time in the past two days Valerie had seen him.
  
• "Are you insane? This whole ship will go nova if we don't dump the core!" Lt. Cooper spoke quietly, but the tension in his voice was evident.

Some may change, some may stay the same.

[TsukiRyoko]

Vincent dug his teeth into the meat, pulled the pink flesh away from the connective tissue, then flung the corn-yellow fat against the cold brick building across the alley.

“Even though the pretty blonde ones are fun to chase, they’re really not worth the meal. Look at this- it’s all tough!”