A Catalogue of First Lines

Today I'm changing my format for a moment to bring you a catalogue of first lines. I think that first lines are important to a story and I'm sure that a lot of people would agree with me. They need to pull the reader in and tell something important. I hope that I acheive that with my first lines. Here are a few of them and a bit about the stories that they come from:

Meredith Sampson always has exact change.

From “Touch.” This is a story about a young woman who suffers from severe burns over half her body. Because of this she has chosen to cut herself off from the world around her. However, life is never that simple and as much as we want to be islands there are very few people who ever are. Meredith craves affection and touch, but she doesn’t believe she is worthy of it. I like this story enough, but I think I read it and reread it too many times. Its shine has worn off, for me at least.

Exhibit A: She is facing the camera, looking annoyed, one hand on her swollen belly.

From “The Proof.” This story is interesting because I tried a different format. The story is told almost completely through a series of photographs that the narrator finds hidden in her boyfriend’s desk. The story came from a very personal and kind of ugly place for me. It’s harsh, and the copy that I sent out to people was toned down a bit from the first draft, which was almost unreadable because of the anger it reflected. I like this story a lot because it defines a feeling for me and it reflects a situation so well. It hasn’t been accepted anywhere yet but one of the editors from Willow Springs Literary Magazine sent me an email to tell me that it made it to the editor’s meeting and that I should email him if I send something else. I thought that was very nice of him and encouraging.

That Guy and What’s-Her-Face met in college.

From “The Tragic Yet True Love Story of That Guy and What’s-Her-Face.” This is another story that hasn’t been accepted by any magazines yet. I’m really not sure if it will be. As a writer, you want to be confident in all the work that you send out and I like this story, I really do, I just think that it might be a little too fable-ish. It came out of a Facebook page I saw of a person that I used to know. (I try to not be that cyber stalking person but, admit it, you do it too). In high school he was boring, but he thought he was the shit, and looking at his profile years later I could tell that he still held that opinion of himself. The thing is, his life wasn’t all that great. It was just really predictable. This story is about predictable lives and the way that it is that some people chose who they are going to love based on the people around them and not on the person that they truly are. It’s tragic and yet so true. These relationships don’t always fail, but what comes out of them doesn’t seem to be authentic.

It makes me sick. Absolutely sick.

From “Jasper.” Okay, so this is two sentences and not one, so shoot me. “Jasper” is about a man who works at a company that does something that is morally questionable to him and the way that he retaliates against it. It is also about the strange role that text messaging plays in our lives. I first went to college right out of high school, which was in 2000. I dropped out, went back, dropped out again, went back for the last time in 2007 and now I’m about to graduate at the end of 2009. It is amazing the technological advances that have been made in that small amount of time. I know that there were cell phones back in 2000, but very few college students had them. I never remember class being interrupted by a phone ringing. When we left class we had time to ruminate over what we had just learned because we weren’t immediately on our phones the second that we walked out of the classroom. Things have changed drastically since those days. This story came out of an introductory level Zoology course that I took in 2008. I was amazed by the amount of people texting during class. Some would even get up during class to take calls outside the door. It was kind of jarring. I didn’t understand who they were texting because I honestly couldn’t think of anyone who would want to receive a text from me that simply said “In science. Did you know that Watson and Crick discovered DNA in 1953.” I didn’t understand who they all had to be in contact with at that exact moment. It just seemed strange to me. Then I thought, what if they aren’t really sending texts to anyone? What if it was just a computer that pretended to be interested in their petty drama? It was an interesting idea and I turned it into this story. The only problem is that I don’t know how it ends. I’m close, I’m just not there yet.

On a Tuesday morning Muriel dreams of a bathroom covered in blood.

From “The Year of Dead Babies.” This is, undoubtedly, the story that I am most proud of (so far). I’m not at all ashamed to say that I love it. It also came from a very personal place, which is where all the best stories come from. It’s about two couple who both experience the loss of a child (one through miscarriage and the other through SIDS). One couple comes together and the other falls apart. I submitted it for workshop in my senior creative writing course and my professor’s response is full of praise, which made me very happy. One of my classmates said that it seemed as though I, more so than any of the other students in the class, had a clear understanding of the human condition and because I actually liked his stories, I took it as a complement. Now that I’m done bragging I’ll tell you what I like about the story. I like that I was able to create a story that was third person omniscient. I think that it is a very difficult thing to do and that there are very few people who do it well. Typically what we see and what I write is third person close. I wanted to break away from something that I was comfortable with and I think I did it well. As with “Proof” I like how much this story reflects a time in my life. When I read it I can see a lot of hopes that I had and a lot of pain that I was feeling. It moves me and it is good of me to be moved by my own story. I like the characters that I created in this story, even Isabel, who many of my readers seemed to be conflicted about. This story has received a lot of positive feedback from the places I have submitted it to. It hasn’t been accepted yet but I’m waiting to hear back from the Black Warrior Review still and my fingers are crossed.