Post the opening lines of your novel or short story

Said the man to himself; in fear.

He had but one fear; colons.

He had but one queer; himself.

He himself had one fear; butts

Dilleroo realised he had only one joke to hear that was about his own expense repeatedly lately!

His post had but one quality; shit.

He was of the condition of having just one fear, or if you would prefer, nothing petrified him more than a specific idea that haunted him frequently and without relent; it was, in name and in practice, as was told to me by a most discerning and steady-handed gentleman whom I have known for many years and have a good notion to trust in matters of people or economics, himself.

>He had but one fear; Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk.

We've both been rejected by the world. We both feel the same threat. And yet...here we are, fated to kill each other in the end.

Chance worried he might have made a mistake by dumping poor Julie four months ago, when she went missing. He sat at the table, thinking over what she had said, the detail of their conversation growing more mysterious by the minute. Did she intend to take off? Should he expect the cops? Probably not, he thought, since they would have contacted him already. Still, Julie was gone -and now she disappears, while he was in Wales.

> His ass belched fire! The fat under his began to boil, the skin sagging down around his bones. A skeleton in brothy soup, a scrotum with bulging legs ready to burst.

Fear had but one fear: he

>Fear and fear and fear and fear.

He had 2 enemies. One, if you counted god.

>Xe had seven hundred twenty six enemies, four hundred and ten, if you counted x/s genderx.

>Greetings.

What is the origin of this meme?

>mama

zero

Harry locked his mother in the closet.

He had but one fear; Las Vegas

>harry potter is a huge delusion of his mother's mind while she is stuck in a closet wishing she'd raised a proper boy

>he had but one fear, that he would fear his fear; he feared this fear of fear. Fearing his fear of fear of fear, he feared that the fear was far too fearful, that fear of fear of fear of fear.

Waking up to one enemy rarely means something good is happening. It’s never “CRASH! Zero if you counted God!” or "CRASH! God is on your side this time!"

>he meme only on one meme, meme meme, meme of meme, meme himself made meme, meme meme of one meme meme meme, a meme

He had but one fear; reddit.

>He Las Vegas'd fear but loathing, one.

xe had one fear; cishet men.

He had but one love; Bob Marley.

>he had but one ring, to rule them all

He had one butt; it stunk.

>He didn't have anything, negative one if you count God.

he had but one fear; grammar

I got 99 problems, 100 if you counted God

>He had but himself to fear.

I commented above about OP'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 does he fear himself?" 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.

Tell me, now. Do people like you usually wrap their tongues around the dick or just come-as-it-does? Good pasta.

>; himself

Semicolons are for connecting independent clauses. "Himself" isn't an independent clause. Independent clauses can stand on their own as complete sentences.

"CRASH!"

Reddit screengrab of great openers

Holy shit, 2deep4me. How do you come up with shit this original ?

upboat

>The only thing, he had; to fear, was fear: itself.

IM A SCATMAN

A semicolon is a hinge; a colon is an arrow.|

>He had but one fear: walrus dicks. It dated back to his fateful tenth summer, when his hippie parents took him on the Rainbow Warrior to confront whaling vessels in the Bering Sea. Twenty years later, he could not even look at a Greenpeace poster or scrimshaw without trembling uncontrollably.

Be sure your opening lines will make the reader want to continue.

He had felt just as anxious years before when his childhood bully had finally stumbled upon his secret weakness, physical pain.

Sold.

...

He had but one diary; mine, desu.

He had but one enemy; two if god was real.

sounds like my diary, desu

It was a cold, dark and rainy night in Future-Polis. But things were not as they seemed. In the shadows a being moved, unheard of and unseen, towards an unknowing victim, living the last minutes of it's life without even being aware of it. Tonight blood would flow.

>leaving out laxnut

Literally gibberish

He had but one fear; Virginia Woolf.

The diary of Hue Phoric.

A gust of wind, rain, sleet, and snow pummeled Ray Garver in the gut, carried him in the air for nearly a second, and slammed him down on the hard, wet road.

help

She was fourteen when she understood what had happened. In a pool to bathe, sitting, arms curled around thin shins with lips pursed and quiet between her kneecaps, she mixed what the Hollydown men and women had said with what had happened to her father.

Write what I know? More like write what your girlfriend blows [1].

[1] This dick.

September 9, 2001. Gary and I were skating at a hospital on top of a huge hill overlooking a valley

>he had but one fear, the fear which is a fear which fears itself as its own fear, or it is that in the fear that the fear fears itself as it's own fear; the fear is not the fear but that the fear fears itself as its own fear.

Dankmeme; the nuptialisms of the cosmogenous nonhegemonous frog-god's thought-speech were divine but none knew the sound for hierarchical thought makes no sound but rather resoresexonerates in the believer's mind; make no mistake that King-Ten-Henry of the diurnallyliturgicalclergy knew not that the frog-god thought-spake unto him, for he was bbb in the soul and ddd in the mind; but then the reader asks "what then of Sisyphax and Polycles, of Hermunictus and Ron, warefor are their tails entwined?"

Wow! I just want to say that this is some of the best writing I have ever seen, and this is coming from a lifelong avid reader! My friends call me a critical person, but I know greatness when I see it, and believe me, I see it!

How do you conjure such a keen sense of foreboding and dread so exquisitely? The masterful use of varied sentence length built the tension to a fever pitch, and the careful withholding of information ("unheard and unseen, towards an unknowing victim") had me on the edge of my seat craving to learn more.

Seriously, I hope you become a professional writer.

>His fear had but one himself; his fear.

He had but one fear; Bret Easton Ellis.

>but
you're writing in a style as dated as your picture u noob bitch! it's mdoern day, don't think that the old stories were good because they said "all but for a chance primblossom," they were good for other reasons and that shit is aattached to it but not the same as what made it good. Try to understand this soon.

big words -> little thoughts

>had but one fear

Still don't understand the 'had but' term

Your opening sentence is nothing bar the manifestation of the ideal beauty. I just don't know how God himself didn't think of it as an opening line for the bible! Listen I'm a real hardass with my criticism; but trust me I orgasimed thrice while reading it. It made me think good, feel good, and get over my abortion.
The prose is on par with Stephen King's, dare I say, and it really just gets the reader hella hooked! The buildup is already there, and it's FABULOUS! You should definitely finish this and publish it. I'm happy to critique more, and I'm nothing but objective. I'll personally edit it if you allow me. You know you can just come to my apartment, I'm currently living alone so there's an empty room. I guess I can take you in as my personal little boipuspus fucktoy haha! Pls send more.

It's synonymous with "only" in this context
He had (only) one fear.

>At a glance, the room showcased that which could only be properly described by the word "adala". Not viciousness, madness, degeneracy, sin. Just adala.

He had but one fear; girls.

"Why the fuck did I erase my memory?"

"shit nigger!" i shouted as i awoke. could this be the end of pudding man.

its a 1500 page surreal-autobiography i infused with commentary about the threat of greenlandization of the western world

He looked at her. Tears quell in his eyes, as they did about an hour ago in hers.

>While desperately clinging to the balcony railing and with his legs helplessly flailing in the air, a threatening member appeared in the doorway. For a split second he gazed into the perplexed eyes of the enormous wolf-man before plunging towards the ground far below him.

In retrospect, pressing a random button on a vast machine thoroughly beyond my understanding was probably not a wise decision.

he had but one fear; the use of colons instead of semicolons which results in him looking like an idiot

good one

>He looked at the ruler in disbelief.

Seems like he dumped her EXACTLY when she went missing, so after she disappeared.
It's confusing.

>his dick was only 8.3cm

>This is from a shot story I started this morning.

Watching it from afar, childhood always seems like a simpler time. It isn't.

>so why on earth would his eyes fall on the 28 centimeter mark?

he got raped didnt he

The Codsells lived on a fruitless farm only forty minutes away from the city.

The Bananasells lived on a fishless island only forty minutes away from the mainland.

No, im actually tryin my hand with some light hearted slice of life.
A bully simply tries to steal the MC friend's first mobile phnoe (it's set in the 90s), and the MC refuse to hand it to him. He then got punched in the face, or possibly kicked in the head by the bully but because of the rush of adrenaline he cant actually remeber how things went. However in the end he still has the phone and the bully is gone. It's titled "The first time I got punched, I was probably actually kicked"

...