50 First Sentences

Hi All,

I am currently taking a course with the amazing Kat Howard on Lit Reactor. The first assignment was for each of us to come up with 50 first sentences of potential short stories. This exercise was so beneficial. It forced me to sit down, bang them out, and release the inner editor inside of my head (her words sort of, not mine). I recommend you give it a try, Here are the 50 I came up with. Thanks for reading!

1. The shovel was blue.
2. The boy walked down the path kicking a pebble along the hard scrabble of dirt.
3. When I was kid, I used to think that people from Earth were good, but now I don’t, because they’re not.
4. Before the infection began, life had been simpler.
5. Galen walked down the hall to go outside, but before he did, he grabbed a handful of Lego’s, stuffed them into his coat pocket.
6. She was as cute as a button, or so the cliché went, but she was more than just a cliché.
7. Their marriage had been crumbling long before she had refused to touch him.
8. The third moon rose through the purplish haze above the planet.
9. There is an unspoken rule that says if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
10. As he lay among the scuttling hermit crabs, he felt a slight twinge of electric shock pulse through the gray matter of what used to be his brain.
11. The fat man got into his Chrysler and knew today it was going to happen.
12. Long ago, there had been five of them.
13. I have a problem, perhaps more of an annoyance than anything.
14. There was a package inside that had gone unnoticed for days.
15. Things had always come easy for Scott.
16. Perhaps one of the worst things about dying is that you don’t realize you’re living until it’s too late.
17. The museum had stood for over one-hundred years.
18. You say bullshit, I say, “Thank you."
19. He grabbed a pack of Camel non-filtered from his dresser drawer, shook one loose, and clenched it hard between his teeth.
20. Scars were entrenched on his face like some sort of irregular jigsaw puzzle.
21. Shelly walked into Nordstrom’s.
22. She wrapped the surgical tubing around her left bicep, tied it in a knot, found an acceptable vein with the tap of two fingers, and went down the wrong path.
23. They were in the squalor of a land now destroyed.
24. You people don’t know shit about nothin’.
25. They thought they were normal, whatever that means.
26. Sometimes I sit alone in the dark and try to think of ways to scrub my brain clean.
27. Damn it feels good to be a gangster.
28. Skies were blue, clouds were gray, and the sea was red.
29. When Francis McGrath woke up that morning, he grabbed his socks, looked out the window, and saw what was about to happen.
30. About the same time he learned to walk, he learned to kill.
31. There’s a funny thing about heroine; life’s not easy when your mother loves it more than you.
32. He was awoken in the morning by a thunderous boom, as if the world was collapsing into itself and he was in the center.
33. Thirty-three disciples were not enough.
34. Tick-tock went the clock.
35. Among the bramble bushes and low lying whips of thorns, there was an idol.
36. Bones were placed high above on pikes as a warning to all who entered, to those who dared to accept the challenge.
37. When a family begins to crumble, it can be a beautiful thing.
38. Reincarnation of the soul can happen if you wish, but there is a catch.
39. There was a jagged edge on the scimitar reminding him of the wound that had healed over, leaving a false impression of victory.
40. It wasn’t his fault his parents had named him Richard with his last named being Hunter, but he could not take it any longer, something had to be done because it was just plain cruel to be cursed with a name like Dick Hunter.
41. Every time I think about going back, a feeling creeps in as if there are a million tiny worms, with tiny teeth, trapped inside tiny bubbles gnawing at my gut.
42. Claire could not remember how she had gotten here.
43. Granite Computers, Inc. was in the process of developing their breakthrough product—a game changer as they like to call it—and Brian was at the forefront of the testing.
44. A lone yellow banana slug made its way over the rock and into the tall grass.
45. Butterflies and hummingbirds are out to get me.
46. A dried and cracked leather scabbard held an ivory-handled saber as it rested against his hip.
47. I want to tell you a story, but I must warn you, there is no happy ending.
48. When the phone rang, he sprang up from the sofa, raced to answer it, but when he listened to the person on the other end; he realized he had made a mistake.
49. Lawrence wanted friends, but he had none except for the moles on his face.
50. After she graduated with a nursing degree, she had visions of becoming an Angel of Mercy, but would up with the Angel of Death as her preceptor.