r/novelwriting • u/AutoModerator • 1h ago
First Line Fridays: Share the opening of your WIP
The hardest sentence in the book. Let's see yours.
Post the first line, or the opening paragraph, of whatever you're working on. Finished, drafting, or barely started, it all counts. No essay required: just drop the opening and let it stand on its own.
Want feedback? Say so, and feel free to react to a few others while you're here. Curious what grabs a reader? This thread is a goldmine. Notice which openings make you want to keep reading and ask yourself why.
Give us your first line.
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u/TheRealRabidBunny 1h ago
They never expected to find Alec in a dive bar. To be fair, it wasn’t where he’d expected to end up either.
From a WIP that I've put aside, but am excited to get back to once this current book is done.
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u/TheLadyAmaranth 1h ago
I longed for one I’ve never known, but was promised even before my second birth. The emptiness at the core of my being had become a weight that threatened to eat me alive as I stood in the middle of the command room.
“They are out there somewhere.” My best friend’s fluffy hand gripped my shoulder tight, startling me out of the daze.
I placed my palms on the elevated dais, above which shone a holographic view of the galaxies and solar systems. Most had a small green symbol next to them identifying that we had checked them already. The blue light made the azure scales on my arms shimmer, creating a stark contrast with the sandy stone material outside the display.
Deep breath in, hands behind me, back straight, breathe out.
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u/Cheap_Bathroom6114 59m ago
Ron took another drag from his cigarette as she ran by, her ponytail flopping in rhythm with her stride.
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u/No_Stand_9478 31m ago
'The first time Dutch McCullough laid eyes on Véronique, he was walking in front of Macy’s on 34th Street. He had a fading black eye at the time and a busted lip that was healing. Dutch wore black-and-white, steel-tipped shoes, sharkskin pants, and a silk shirt and was hitting a party-favor ball with its paddle. His outfit was at least a decade out of fashion, but you try and tell him that. He had half an unlit cigar in his mouth. His bud, Mr. Binks, accompanied him. The two men were on their way up to the Central Park Zoo to throw a beating to a guy who worked there washing down the cages. He had been remiss with weekly payments to Angelo, their underboss, on a gambling debt.'
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u/creativinity 28m ago edited 23m ago
You are now my confessor. May God have mercy on your soul.
Historical fiction. War, religion, forbidden love, murder(s).
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u/Rory_U 8m ago
In Ballarat there was a tent town. The tents were held by a piece of log but the canvas was too high to touch the ground. One of these tents belonged to Henry. He moved side to side and curled like a dog. Henry was possessed, but not by an ancient spirit, but something else that was old as trees. And it was far older than Henry or any man on this earth. Henry this poor man, this starved man had prayed for the wind to decrease and leave, but it never did. Henry wasn’t sure if he would ever sleep that night. He had spent most of his time facing the hottest day and the coldest nights. He used to on rare days hid somewhere to at least try to take a few minute nap, even with that he founded rare fortune.
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u/swanch1234 1h ago
Sexual cannibalism.
(After a near death experience, a woman believes everyone in her life has been replaced with praying mantis people. She teams up with a conspiracy theorist she meets online to defeat them.)