Post the opening line of your novel, other anons rate. Haven't seen one of these in a while

Post the opening line of your novel, other anons rate. Haven't seen one of these in a while.

Here's mine.
>Abrasive shoulders and fervent arms, though not their express purpose were still well built to deprive a bystander of even a slight glance at the retrieval.

...

Marching marching marching marching counting marching marching marching counting marching marching counting into falling into pockets of burnt umbers, dancing now are red embers over a trench pitted no more than 6 feet under and now . . .
Pause.

...

Freedom is a fire, sparked by revolution
which burns until the ashes of the old
give life to those inheriting the dawn

Its going to be a 5 part epic poem detailing the wars of the modern century from the perspective of the idealistic lower ranking soldiers.

When the night rolled over on its belly, and the sun had already swallowed up what dew had managed to settle on the patchy grass, I knew how to pray for rain.

Dicks.

doesn't feel very musical

here's the beginning of my long poem

it ain’t appalachia brought down from heaven,
all them beasts sing: praise ye Yah. alleluia
to all y’all find in the blue hills. ain’t it strange

fucking genius

She enters, deliberately, gravely, without affectation, circumspect in her motions (as she’s been taught), not stamping too loud, nor dragging her legs after her, but advancing sedately, discreetly, glancing briefly at the empty rumpled bed, the cast-off nightclothes. She hesitates. No. Again. She enters. Deliberately and gravely, without affectation, not stamping too loud, nor dragging her legs after her, not marching as if leading a dance, nor keeping time with her head and hands, nor staring or turning her head either one way or the other, but advancing sedately and discreetly through the door, across the polished floor, past the empty rumpled bed and cast-off nightclothes (not glancing, that’s better), to the tall curtains along the far wall.

this hurts more than it should. a-am I a brainlet?

Jesus.. 0/10
Can't rate because I need more information on the page or work. 5/10 by itself
3/10
It's almost something.
No
4/10.


Here's mine
: "So of course," wrote Betty Flanders, pressing her heels rather deeper in the sand, "there was nothing for it but to leave."

War, war never changes--- but it's always changing.

Waking up to a loud crash rarely means something good is happening. It’s never “CRASH! Mom made pancakes!” or “CRASH! We decided to adopt a Golden Retriever!”

reddit is over there pal

3.5/10

Laconically replied Slouch, elongated limbs cast flesh stretched over grotesquely large frame, Caesar to the impoverished, “Neither.”

I hate everybody. I'm not part of any scene. I do my own thing. My mind is a machine gun, my body is the bullets, the audience is the target.

Is this a joke

Deep, meaningful. Probably the best opening line in this thread.

same fag

t.

no they werent me but its actually a qoute from GG allen...rip big guy

"Fuck!" I stubbed my toe.

its about a trans woman with ass burgers who solves crimes in 1950s Canada btw

The sun began to decline one hour after twelve, and she lie in the same position she had woke up in, her stomach empty but quiet, her thoughts manifested beside her as a pale figure, a hazy smile and sanguine eyes in her periphery… Your purpose?

t. long neck wojak
I don't know. If I had the concave brain wojak imagining he was a big brain wojak, I would've posted that, because your opening line is a full of complex words that make you sound like a pseudointellectual.

that's a fair assessment and it's actually what I feared, the truth is I just write like an autist when I'm trying to describe what I'm imagining. people have told me the same before, I've gotten better results when I purposefully try and thin the complexity out of my excerpts but it never feels right and I'm no longer happy with what I wrote. it's actually pretty infuriating

...

...

Hold up, you ain't me. You're taking criticism way too well. Stop being a better me.

I'm feeling pretty self-conscious at the replies but I at least avoided deleting the thread the moment I saw the first brainlet wojak so that's something. I figure I'll try harder to not give that overly verbose pseud aura even if it's uncomfortable for me. I don't want to just write for myself.

the thread is for criticism after all, if I don't take anything away from it why bother?

Is this meta... cause this kind of how I want my story to go. Thanks false user, you helped me. The criticism did too, I do try too hard, need to dial back my vocab.

Sounds awesome, care to post a link?

DeAndre realized a little too late - nine months too late - that he put his dick into the wrong hole.

8/10
Legit curious how everything else will go.

She smiled, looking empty.

"SANDOVAL", I cried into the storm SHATTERED night, the gentleman cat affording not one backward glance!

"I hate Hitler because of the Autobahn" he thought stuck in traffic, "I guess what he did to the Jews wasn't so swell either."

You’re the user who’s writing an abstract impressionist war story, right?

user.. easy on the adverbs

"Jesus fuck," he croaked out, "That's some good weed."

get rid of the words "pockets" and "trench" replace them with something along lines of cave/hole for pocket and impression/indentation if you were going for ambiguity especially considering the poetic quality of the line. Avoid pedestrian sounding language and draw the reader into a spell.

I was born in the Dublin streets where the royal drums did beat, and the loving English feet walked all over us.

>You’re the user who’s writing an abstract impressionist war story, right?
wtf kind of opening line is that kekek

Indeed

the real problem is the grammar doesn't parse

I looked all around at them, my focus heightened with my anxiety, but their eyes never met mine.

"Paris had fallen out of love with Helen."

It's a short story about lesbians.

>"What the hell happened?!?! What happened back there!", a loud thunderous sound made the earth beneath them quake, as if the titans once again marched on Olympus.

there would be a name of the character there but i dont want to get sued for a similar name from another popular book so i have to look how stuff like that works.

Two pilgrims tread over the snow blasted land.

Each morning Mr. Coleman had stood up at the same time and once he had finished his ususal morning routine he would leave his home for his job of such mundane character that it was not worth specifying upon it.

I actually like this. The adverb overload would normally be shit, but in the context of what sounds like a stage director it works very well.
I would change the structure so that it reads as
>No.
>Again.
>She enters...
And use that visual signifier to drive home the measured repetition of events

Using multiple question marks or exclamation points is just poor form. The prose itself is much better than that Michael Bay dialog stand-in, do more of that.

Dilly Dilly.

>my name is not important

He was gay as fuck to be honest but he was still my best friend.

Michael Bay is talented and you are a plebe pseud

For the first time in years, Miles turns left or right, struggling to remember which is which.

"Lo, aloha to the shores and mahalo upon the coconuts of my youth. From my ohana of the past to the ohana of today I've truly felt the love ten fold ex eo ipso devirgin suicides! An experience sui generis! Communicative isolation art you may call it, utsukushii even!"

I turned my head slightly to face her ghastly looking female lawyer and then her. She was in tears. The game was over. The lawyer adjusted her cap and slipped her pocket Torah inside her coat pocket. The woman who accused me of sexual misconduct that fateful day when I asked if she had a boyfriend is now shriveled up in fear, her human face melting away as I begin to see her true appearance. More nightmarish than anyone could have ever imagined. The nose was gigantic, his eyes squinting in some strange semblance of greedy satisfaction. But it was the hands. The hands contorted and grew hair and large blue veins, the blood of men coursed through them. The accuser just sat there transformed. Rubbing his together and laughing, his nose swaying from left to right.

kekekekeke

On the plane of my peripheral being stands a devil very unlike the rest I see, for I shake his hand and pass him by, but he strides much faster than I.

Bill Terwilliger's 12-year anniversary as Senior Engineer for Globodex Industries was met in the breakroom with celebratory sheet cake.

Death is a fat woman, and her name is Abigail, and I love her; she smells good due to good bathing practices.

using good twice serves no purpose, consider dropping one of them

Thanks for the tip. I appreciate the tip.

10/10

Ha, I see what you did there. Do you live in the big city? Care to link up for a coffee? I'm having a hard time making friends out here.

>You'd better not never tell nobody but God.

The second world war was a war between the ideologies of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

This is misogynistic to say the least.

>"Oh please," she said, not looking at me, and then looking back at me intensely, "it's not like you never told her any lies."

I met her at the brothel. I didn't expect to meet such a woman there. If you could call her a woman. More or a girl trapped in a woman's body. Covered in tattoos. But with the fragility of mind and character of a 15 year old school girl.

It's not the big city, but it's a big city among many. If you're an alien, have access to advanced technology, are a girl, have loads of dough, or if you're connected to powerful people than I'd love being your friend; otherwise, my autistic nature might be a deterrent for any meaningful relationship.

*more like a

Call me Daddy,

said the faggot, who also happens to be the author of the book you are currently reading.

Overly complex structure does not a good sentence make
9/10 post more
10/10
needswork/10
Immediate loss of interest
dude.../10
Brilliant
'looking' is telling, not showing
It's OK
Is this a reference to the seizure scene in The Comedy when he watches the girl have a seizure and he impersonates Nick Nolte and says "Jesus fuck, that's some good- that's some good pot!"?
One pilgrim says to the other...
Really good but that 'or' is confusing and not in the way you wanted. Consider 'and'
Trying too hard
No it wasn't

Amidst the airport humdrum, Kelly pretended to reach down into her purse, though really she was sniffing the leather seat recently vacated by an anxious stranger- it was compulsion- her nasal sense bordered on that of a hound's, and took in a myriad of scents, perceiving and sorting the nuances between them like a persnickety babushka arranging linens by categories only she knows... For example- on this stranger hung a stench of desperation composed of a cabbage-like sulphur, suffused with lavender soap and a certain bacterial composition Kelly could not personally identify, but, unbeknownst to her, was syphilis.

Holy overblown opening... 1/10 for effort. What's the point? To shitpost? Even then it tries way too hard and tells overmuch without accomplishing much.

cumbersome word choice is getting in the way of the imagery and action

good

also good

I stride forth gallantly on what was to be the beginning of my adventure, stars in my eyes and cock in my hand.

Mama's back in the concrete finger that points to where Papa now lives, I miss him.

Only one enemy remained; two if you counted god.

I commented above about another user's opening sentence, and how I thought it was longish. user, your opening line is a superb example of not only being concise, but providing an awesome hook. A great opening line causes the reader to want to more. In this case, my immediate reaction was "why is god the enemy?" Great concept, with great contrast, and I would love to read more.

Great prose also has great flow-great rhythm. Again, yours is a perfect example. The cadence is so perfect. Sounds great and feels great.

My friends and clients know me as often being over critical. On the other hand, when I see greatness, I am equally blunt. Your opening line is nothing less than superb.

How can one suck their own cock this much.

"That's why you read Plato." And just like that, he was gone.

It's 3 A.M. and X has just pissed himself.

Death bites me every night, it calls itself grief then, and it doesn't always come from me.

You really can't bullshit good writing. The difference between the shit spewed out by 90 percent of this board, and the 10 percent of people who actually know what they're doing? It's night and day.

It's hard to explain genius, but imagine being Mozart and getting frustrated at a student pianist, NOT for lack of trying, nor for lack of potential, but because he just can't see the big picture the way you can. He can't see the notes, he can't feel the tempo. He can't predict the music the same way a blind man predicts the sidewalk. You tell him to close his eyes and let the symphony speak for itself; to meditate on the haunting melody of brass and string, and wait for the music to strip him of his soul, but all he can do is look at you with his big, brown, puppy-dog eyes, only to tell you in faltering tones, "Master, I don't understand".

How maddening it must be! You only want to shake him and wake him from his stupidity, "Hear it! Hear the trumpets! The ivory! The beautiful sounds!", but alas, he is as far away from you as a dead fish is to water, because it's not something you learn. It's something you HAVE. And that must be what it's like for the rest of the 10 percent on this wretched, cursed board-- A student, desperately trying to impress its master, only to receive a forced, painful grin, hidden behind a hard, pained grimace, and an occasional pat on the back that says "if only you could hear me, if only you could see me, but all that inhabits my lonely, lonely world is the restless ambling of the deaf and the blind."

It must be a desperate, broken feeling...

My name is Nadim Porten- FUCK, someone else did it before me.

The sound of the tide striking the harbour outside their window competed against the cracking of the fire under their stove.

Mr David went out to look for his ether cylinder, into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust. A few vultures looked down from the roof with shabby indifference: he wasn't carrion yet. A faint feeling of rebellion stirred in Mr David's heart, and he wrenched up a piece of the road with splintering finger-nails and tossed it feebly towards them. One rose and flapped across town: over the tiny plaza, over the bust of an ex-president, ex-general, ex-human being, over the two stalls that sold mineral water, towards the river and the sea.

The bottom of his teacup said Ocean Thailand Resorts, as he marvelled with each sip, should I ask Destiny how she achieved this golden hue?

The bottom of his teacup said Ocean Thailand Resorts, as he marvelled with each sip, should I ask To-Phang how she achieved this golden hue? and why she kept these cups in the bathroom? and never drank tea with him?

Truth or Dare, tell a lie and cut your hair....
it sounded good when I was younger....

thanks buddy