inspired
to journal
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Novel Sentences
This is a fun, mind-stretching exercise. I think it was originally designed for fiction writers. I don't even know where I got it from! Pick a novel, open to any page, and copy down the first full sentence. Now write off of that! For fiction writers, write a short story using that as a first line. Poets could also use it as a first line. Journalers - use that first sentence as a prompt. I'm
not much of a novel reader. However, I am a big fan of Margaret Atwood
and Toni Morrison and have a few (read: several) of their books on the
shelves drowning in non-fiction. So I opened them up and have come up
with some of those first sentences. I wrote down the first ones I saw,
to be true to the exercise, then went through and read some more just
for fun. This is a limitless exercise, considering how many pages are
in a novel, and how many novels there are! I am tempted to go to the library
and look at novels by authors I've never heard of! It would be interesting
to use a non-fiction book, too, just for comparison. Here goes. "Part of why they loved it was the specter they left behind." Jazz "Its lid rusted shut." Beloved "That
and the necessity for new clothes." Jazz "I thought of beheading them, of laying waste." The Blind Assassin "A little incredulity would have been a first line of defence." The Blind Assassin "How
did the war creep up?" The Blind Assassin "Two elementary schoolgirls listened to me question their school librarian about her habit of dividing new books into "boys' books and girls' books." Now there is some food for thought. * |
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