I just discovered
Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday and decided to try it out. This is the first ten sentences of
Champion in the Darkness. I can't seem to get them right, and I need them to jump off the page and grab the reader's attention. Any help with that would be greatly appreciated.
Please ignore the minor spacing issues. When I copy and pasted to my blog post, the spacing issues appeared and I haven't been able to fix them. My lack of tech skills is showing.
Lightning
flashed against dark clouds. A fiery sword towered above her, swinging downward. She cowered in the mud,
with a broken sword in her hands. Clashing metal and shouting voices surrounded
her. Lightning flashed again, and Clara woke with a start, breathing in gasps
of air.
The recurring nightmare had struck again. The lightning burned into the blackness of sleep was replaced by sunlight pouring into her room, hitting her
directly in the face. She closed her eyes, and tried to remember the details of the
dream. Her heart was pounding, but she felt like she had to replay, had to
understand it. The broken sword of power in her hands had seemed to be the source of the lightning, but that didn't make sense.
A little html formatting would fix the spacing. Want me to email you a couple simple tricks?
ReplyDeleteYou are asking the wrong person about gripping first sentences. The only suggestion would be to employ the five senses a little more. Might bring it more to life. But again, I'm not good at it either.
lightning struck from the thick black clouds as if igniting the fiery sword about to strike. Cowering in the wet, slimy mud with a broken sword in her hands, metal clashed and voices shouted all around her. When lightning flashed again, Clara's eyes popped open and she gasped for air.
ReplyDeletei like where this is going! hope this rewording gives you some ideas =)
Alex - Thanks! Tech help would be great! Those five senses . . .I should know them, right? sigh.
ReplyDeleteTara - Wow! Thanks for the amazing help!
Welcome to SFFS :)
ReplyDeleteOpening lines are tricky. I say write the rest of the story and revise it on your first editing pass - otherwise you'll never get there!
Good luck.