Once Upon a Time…
A different ‘first line’ game
Scrolling through Medium I noticed that some authors are playing a ‘first line’ prompt game; taking a first line prompt and building an extremely short story from it.
Soon thereafter I went into my Drafts folder. I try to do that on a somewhat regular basis to see if there are any unfinished stories worth pursuing and to delete some of the crapola. I haven’t done this in a while, though, so there was a lot in the folder. There were plenty of unfinished articles and stories as well as some that were finished and polished but which I never published because I was not happy enough with them or because they might be too contentious or too woo-woo for the Medium audience.
I was about to start deleting when I got an idea. Why not gather all the ‘first lines’ from all those drafts and publish that? Instead of a story from a prompt it would just be a whole lot of ‘first line’ prompts (which, by the way, anyone is free to use for their own story).
So here is my list of first lines from drafts that never got published:
I happen to believe that there is a very serious connection between luck and love.
Have you ever saved a human’s life?
Jeff and Cindy fell in love and then everything went downhill.
Of the 58 employees where I worked I was the only white guy — and I was the boss.
When they returned to port they went their separate ways.
After leaving work for the day Carolyn Clark drove straight to the Riverview Alzheimer’s Assisted Living Facility to see her father.
The five people walked slowly along the beach talking and laughing.
You are taking a delightful walk down by the river and you look over towards an office building and you suddenly decide to enter the building.
Both his first and second disappearances were rather spontaneous events but Troy Morrison had been planning his third disappearance for many months.
Jake entered the therapist’s office, nodded at her then sat down in the chair he always sat down in.
After much consideration it was agreed upon by the entire group that they should call off the trek, turn around and go home.
Evan took three long, deep breaths then he shook his head back and forth vigorously then he shook his hands back and forth vigorously in front of himself.
Having witnessed the spectacle, Roger was shaken to his core.
Since he was a small kid Tyler avoided being in the middle of large groups.
It all started during the summer vacation following Amy Jenkins’ fifth year of school.
Jason had a best friend that lived three hundred miles away.
When I was a child I used to fantasize about being a very old person.
Since long ago days the town of Plattsville seemed to be cursed.
Sally was sitting at the apartment door panting and wagging her tail.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have breasts.
Letting go of the ball and letting it drop to the floor and bounce to a stop, Langston felt so much lighter.
How often do you talk to the universe?
Captain Dack Mulrooney had volunteered for a top secret experimental project being carried out at a secret army facility hidden deep inside a mountain in the remote desert of New Mexico.
In the old Lakota society only the woman in a marriage had the power of divorce.
How does a great civilization end?
It was a somber meeting, for the news was not good.
Collectively, humans live through cycles.
Doreen Baxter sat in her chair swiveling back and forth as the other six investigators took their seats at the conference table.
Jenda suddenly appeared on the bench next to Calvin.
Edgar Cayce said that America is the reincarnation of Atlantis.
Does it piss you off that there are so many stupid people?
Rapidly dwindling supplies were cause for concern but they were also an opportunity to lighten the load in preparation for movement.
Looking up at the mesa above, she wondered if she would ever see him again.
Whew! That was a lot of work. It was a wee bit of fun, though. Now it’s time to start deleting. There may be a few that I’ll keep for later.
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