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LOL. That's so true. I'm with you all the way! (except maybe on the Godzilla thning ;o)

It's all about the writing! Doesn't matter if it's high action or low action - if the writing is good I'll see past it. Nightshade does a great job with an action scene but connecting the reader right away to the mc.

You do have to have some element of interest early on instead of just scene setting and description, but you're totally right about not leaping into desperate action immediately. I'm sure it works every once in awhile, but it's hard to pull it off. Still, knowing where to start the story is really hard. I've struggled with this with one of my novels, and I think I've rewritten it at least twelve times! It's harder with some stories than others, I guess.

I've struggled with this concept. I wrote my ms. After a few CPs gave a peek, I rewrote the beginning to be more 'action packed'. Although the opener is an emotional scene for the MC and readers all said they were drawn to read more and did (even some agents), something still didn't feel right to me. I'm currently rewriting the beginning with what I feel is a more initial character lure, drawing the reader into the character's current situation (introducing her more personally) before the emotional scene. I think it works better.

Great advice, Lisa. Ellen Hopkins told me during my professional critique at the LA SCBWI conference last year that you should begin with the mc's normal THEN disrupt that near the end of the first chapter. Of course "normal" needs to be interesting enough to get the reader to the end of the chapter. ;)

This is fantastic advice! I honestly think that all the first 250-word contests mess with people's heads on occasion. They get critiques that say, "It's fine, but nothing's happening," and they think it needs to be spiced up beyond recognition. Love the Godzilla pic :)

This is hilarious, and so true!

That is a great picture. I'd like one taken with Godzilla too *_* But yes, awesome post as well lol.

I'm loving the comments today! I see I really hit a nerve for some people, but hopefully in a good way. :D It IS hard to find the beginning of your book, which sounds counter-intuitive. But it's true!

Great post, and something I struggle with. You only have so many pages to hook the reader (or the agent...) but they need to "connect" with the character as well as be interested in the plot... so if it's all plot you won't hook 'em and if it's all character development you won't hook 'em either. Godzilla has to look good in that prom dress, or be having an existential fashion crisis... in addition to breathing fire on the mean girls... or something like that ;-) happy writing!

LOL! I have no doubt someone will write it. How can one not? Godzilla in a prom dress, I mean come on, awesome! You make an excellent point. We need to start our story where it starts, and that isn't necessarily at the inciting incident. I'm like you, I like to get to know the character and care about them, whether it starts with action or not. The connection is what keeps me reading, not the action.

Nice post.
Beautiful picture.

There goes my Godzilla destroying a prom opening!! What if Mothra destroys the prom (gimme something)? Nice post. I think most hectic openings should be reserved for movies - for some reason they work better in that format. Books need a great hook but that hook involves the MC for sure. Thanks, Lisa.

Ha, this is soooo true. As readers, we don't even know who these people are. So do you think I'll care if Suzie gets eaten by Godzilla? (You are going to have Godzilla eat people at the Prom right?).

But if I get to know Suzie a little better, I will be more concerned about her safety. Empathy first. High drama later.

OMG you guys are AWESOME!! I love love love the comments! And yes - I can't imagine Godzilla not being hungry. I mean wouldn't you be if you were him? And all those appetizing girls dressed up... Ha, if I wrote it, it would totally be from Godzilla's POV.

Hey Lisa! First of all, I loved that picture you put there! That monster is so ugly, yet for me it looked cute--or maybe it's just me, lol.
Anyway, I totally agree with you--I think that if you want to start with action, you have to give something about the character for the readers to empathize with. So, I think your words were wise, amiga.

Aw, but it's Godzilla! Everyone can connect with Godzilla! ;)
Great post with a great point :)

So wise, Obi-Wan. For some reason made me think of Jodi Piccoult. I love her opening scenes because they are so gripping: some action, but more emotion, we immediately need to know about these characters - and she can get you to care about multiple characters in one first scene, too.

I though Godzilla was a guy. Apparently he's a cross-dresser, or he just looks darn good in a gown. Great points as always, Lisa. I just started reading White Cat by Holly Black - now there's the perfect blend of a character that I'm willing to invest in from the get-go and a crazy opening sequence.

I love being referred to as Obi Wan. :D And I care extra for Godzilla who takes the time to dress appropriately. He he.

Finding the right spot to open in, the right POV, the right wording -- it's so difficult but incredibly important. And I agree that it can't all be about causing a sensation as much as bonding with the character.

So true. I think fast openings and opening with action get a little lost in the shuffle. Action doesn't have to mean explosions or car chases. Something is set in motion, and like you said, we need to care about someone right away. Otherwise, why bother?

I came over thanks to Julie's tweet. Definitely agree with you on this. I much prefer to know even one minute thing about your MC that'll make me want to go the distance with him/her before the fireworks hit.

Excellent advice. I especially like this: I NEED to be immersed in the scene, not hit over the head with it. ha!

He he he - thanks everyone! JL and Doralynn welcome! Glad you liked it.

Excellent advice. I think people often think that 'start with the action' means 'start with action'. It doesn't--it means you need to start with something that draws us in and shows us what this book is going to be about!

Although I could deal with starting with a bang if it involved Godzilla and a prom.

LOL I LOVE that somebody finally says this. The #1 reason I put a book down in the first few pages is not that it didn't grab me and excite me, but that I didn't bond to the characters. Some people just throw too much chaos in there and you feel like you can't cling to anything. If I don't care about the people you're introducing to us, I won't read it past page 5, period.

We must resist the temptation - even of Godzilla at prom.

And I'm not sure I'm really the first to say this, but I'm glad I mad it clear!

Great tip! I need to rewrite my opening but I'm struggling with where to begin! It's good to remember that you don't have to start with an action-packed scene. I agree with the above commenters who said that you need to start at a place where the reader can get to know the MC.

I also don't care for action-packed beginnings. Not only is there no bond with the characters, but sometimes they're confusing.

LOL - I'm going to start using that example (the what-not-to-do)! Do you get the feeling that sometimes the blogosphere creates it's own problems in some ways? Anyway, the best description I've ever read was in McKee's book: start with the Inciting Incident, but only if it makes sense (sometimes you can!). Otherwise, put exactly as much information (no more, no less) than is what's necessary for us to completely understand the Inciting Incident before it.

Not that this is easy to do, but it helps keep me pointed in the right direction. :)

Ha ha! Action is okay - but it can't be the deciding factor, it's really about letting the MC reveal his/herself to the reader. And Susan - I love that advice. Well said!

I think people confuse having tension in your opening scene with having wham-bam action. They aren't the same thing. I think action scenes could open up a novel, but it would have to be done really, really, really well. Really.

Lydia - REALLY? LOL!

Most middle grade books I read - open with a paragraph of telling. And it's very hooky because it's all dripping with voice. That's when telling works and skyrockets your book into another level. It's too bad that this is something that writers need to figure out on their own because they just hear the rule show don't tell and edit out any telling! Great post.

I agree with you that it's sometimes "easier to recognize when voice is missing than to identify what makes it unique when it is there."
I can read my writers' work blindly and tell who wrote it because they have a particular voice. Here's an example of voice from THE LION AWAKENS that I think (hope) is telling of Petra's personality. I would so like to have her as a best friend:)

“Oh. My. Gawd.” Petra blurted out as soon as she saw Annie at lunch. “Did you hear? Did you hear about Jess Gross? She really is gross.”
“What happened?” Annie asked, playing dumb.
“Well, I heard Chad Hoover tell Ryley Martin in math class that Jess picked her nose and wiped it on his shirt. He was totally grossed out. I mean, I would be, too. What was she thinkin’? You know what this means, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Jess is off the A-List. Not that I care. I mean, she was the mastermind behind the granny pants incident. Remember that?”
“How could I forget.”
“Yeah, you and everyone else. But maybe now they’ll talk about Jess instead. After Chad told Ryley about Jess, they started callin’ her Boogie Boobs. Cause you know she has big boobs, which they like, but now that boogie deal sort of scratches that out.”
Petra went on and on recounting all of the incidents that Jess and the other Sisters bullied and made fun of others. The boogie incident had clearly made her day.
“And another thing. Did you know The Sisters have rules?”
“Like what?”
“Like they’re not allowed to wear jeans, even on gym days.”
“That’s just plain weird.”
“Yeah, I know. But they have this whole list of rules that they all have to follow.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, Jen’s locker is near mine, right? And one day I saw Jen and another girl, I forget her name, but she’s also a sister, yell at another sister because she wore jeans. They were designer jeans, but that didn’t matter. They told her that she had to follow the rules or she was out. That her not following the rules was a bad reflection on the rest of them. Like how stupid is that?”
“Pretty stupid. So what happened?”
“They snubbed her the rest of the day. Didn’t let her eat lunch with them. Haven’t seen her in jeans since.”

If the voice doesn't work, nothing in the book works for me.

I think of 'voice' as a comfy sweater. When you start out, it might be too tight or scratchy but the more you work at it, the more comfortable it becomes until it's ingrained in everything you write.

To me, voice is when you break the rules artfully. Just look at that third quote you gave. It's a ridiculously long run-on sentence, but it's so perfect. Anything without a good voice is just a cookie-cutter novel that anyone could have put together by following the rules.

Brilliant. So spot on. Voice is so difficult to define. It's more a matter of just recognizing it when we see. John Green has such a distinctive voice--it is pure John Green, present in all of his books and even in his vlogs, just in spoken form. I think it's, in a way, the personality of the author shining through, but in a very controlled way.

Must RT....

Wow! I've just been blogging about Showing vs. Telling, as are others around the blogosphere, lately. This is a great reminder, not to sacrifice voice for rules. Still, the rules are there for a reason, and usually beginner writers are still developing their voice. Telling rather than showing--unless in the hands of a really good writer--often introduces an unnecessary distance between the writing and the writer. You can only break rules if you're good! The same with beginning a novel with dialogue, and other rules. Here's an example of strong voice--and Telling while it does!--from the opening of Ingrid Law's MG novel, Savvy:

When my brother Fish turned thirteen, we moved to the deepest part of inland because of the hurricane and, of course, the fact that he'd caused it. I had liked living down south on the edge of land, next to the pushing-pulling waves. I had liked it with a mighty kind of liking, so moving had been hard--hard like the pavement the first time I fell off my pink two-wheeler and my palms burned like fire from all of the hurt just under the skin. But it was plain that Fish could live nowhere near or nearby or next to or close to or on or around any largish bodies of water. Water had a way of triggering my brother and making ordinary, everyday weather take a frightening turn for the worse.

Some of these are rambling sentences--and all Telling! The next paragraph in the book is one entire page, describing a flashback of Fish's birthday party! The point is, I think, it's INTERESTING Telling and explaining why they had to move, and the voice shines through and pushes past the "violation" of the rules. I love Ray Bradbury's writing for the same reasons, including the occasional run-on sentences that are as exhilarating as running down a flowered-covered summer hillside with your arms open wide. One of Ray Bradbury's (and also Ingrid Law's) sentences is ONE PARAGRAPH long. And I don't mean a short paragraph, either. Anyway, thanks for the crucial thoughts to ponder!

WOW! I LOVE all these examples. Thanks, everyone for sharing them! I always wonder how long it takes a writer to come up with a genius opening. I'd done three full drafts of my novel before I came up with a reasonable opening paragraph, and I was sitting at SCBWI-NY after listening to the brilliant Libba Bray, and all my neurons were firing at once. I'm in AWE of the writers who come up with a handful of words that set up and sum up the book and the character all in one fell swoop--and make it seem effortless. It's both exilerating and humbling to contemplate, isn't it?

Martina

My favorite thing here was this quote: "the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make." That speaks volumes, and is just so eloquent, and so true.

I love Somerset Maugham's voice in The Razor's Edge...not YA or MG, but a fine example, IMHO.

I loved Libba Bray's opening to Going Bovine! Also liked the opening of Paranormalcy and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief too! :D

I love your examples. I really struggle with voice though I'm trying to see it more as I read. Paranormalcy had a great voice.

Great examples! Voice can be so elusive yet so obvious when we see it :)

Great post! Voice is so hard to define. For me, I know when I like it, but I can't always say why. I guess judging voice is the ultimate in subjectivity. As for examples, I love Chuck Palahniuk's voice. Also Rachel Cohn's. And John Green's.

Yay, finally permission to tell . . . as long as there's voice. :D

Wow--what a great post! So very true, I think. The way things are told brings out the voice--which is just as important as showing, when done right :)

Rules are meant to be broken; if it works why not?

I do sometimes miss those days when ignorance of the rules saved my creativity from getting caught in their web.

Awesome stuff by these authors! Good luck.

And thanks for stopping by my blog. Now I have "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" swimming in my head! Loved that scene.

Awesome openings. Great work people. Glad I'm not judging. Have a super day.

Congratulations to the top 10!

These are all so great! And Natalie is an amazing judge! Congrats to the top 10!!!

Yay! Congrats to everyone who made it this far! I can't wait to read them all!

Wow! These are awesome! Thank you so much! :-)

L.J. Boldyrev (Lacey)
#11

There’s a dead girl in the trunk and all I can think about is how white the trees are. There ain’t no street lamps on this stretch of road, but still the trees glow like they’re lit from the ground up.

“Not much farther,” Jack says.

I want to tell him he’s driving too fast, to slow down so I can get a better look at the trees, but I know we got to hurry. This dead girl won't stay dead for long.

congratulations, guys--love all these entries! Good luck.

great entries everybody!

#18 Jenn Fitzgerald

Madame Bhut’s Finishing School in the town of Whut was known across Amalthea as a respectable place to send your daughter if you were hoping to marry her to a gentleman; not for producing evil queens with ideas of world domination. That is, until Priscilla Martin escaped.

Even before she escaped, Priscilla was less than a model student. Miss Birch, the embroidery teacher, had been horrified to find that during her second week at the school Priscilla had started embroidering skulls and crossbones, instead of flowers, on all her projects. Miss Ash discovered that not only had the girl never had any drawing instruction before (which she considered a horrible oversight on the part of the girl's parents), but Priscilla was also partial to drawing dreary forests and populating them with monsters.

Congrats everyone! This was a great experience. Thank you.

These are great! Congrats to the top ten, woohoo!

These are all really good!

Congrats to everyone! These openings are fantastic!

Cambria Dillon
#28

Whoever said cell phones made life easier was full of BS. If it were true, then I wouldn’t have spent the past fourteen minutes sitting on my bed, half-naked, wondering why my thumb couldn’t do something as simple as press a button.

Girls did this sort of thing every day. Probably every minute at Pembroke, which meant I’d just wasted fourteen—no wait, fifteen—opportunities to prove to Tommy that—damn it Kendall, just do it already.

Grinding my teeth, I lifted my arm and pointed the viewfinder at my chest.

Awesome! Congratulations on making it this far, everyone!

#58

Dearest Mother;

I know you’ve been wanting to hear the latest gossip from this end of the underworld, but the truth is, that there hasn’t been much going on since his Evil Lordship succumbed to death by piano. Hopefully you’ll be pleased that I’ve been trying not to complain about the piano not landing on Grok instead (and that I’ve only been taunting him in the gruel line at breakfast). Also, no matter what you’ve heard, I was not the one who gave him that atomic wedgie.

As for the new guy - it’s not right to speak ill of the heir to the Evil Lordship, but the kid is hopeless. I don’t usually want to give up on the new evil overlord this quickly, but I’m telling you, I’ve spent several weeks observing him and I don’t think this kid has a mean bone in his body!

#11 L.J. Boldyrev, ftw.

it's written in a clearly unique voice that makes me want to know more about the narrator, the implied preceding action is so tantalizingly subtle it's almost maddening, and the narrator's reaction to the trees-as-distraction from the preceding action is, i think, very true to life.

again, this is a full story i want to read. now.

WOW, what a stunner of a fifth sentence, LJ Boldyrev! You are my fave, #11! I would SO like to read the rest of that book. Do I really have to wait until you get published???? Do you need a line-by-line critiquer? That's the kind of ms swap I tend to do. :)

Tom, Carol, wow. Thank you guys, so much!
Tracy, I wanted to say that I love your opening!
They're all fantastic but your voice really stands out to me, as does the subject matter.

Congrats to all the winners! I sure am glad I don't have to be the one to eliminate anyone. BTW, Marissa - you won my contest! Check it out.

Wow! I'm so excited to have made the top 10!!! There were so many awesome entries in the top 25.

#61

Homo sapiens sluttiwhen drunkus--the subspecies to which I apparently belong.

My best friend Ani handed me a tall, clear-glass cup of Armenian coffee, the kind her mom used for readings down at the Psychic Connection. "So did you at least use a condom?"

I shrugged. All 4’11” of her was going to kick my ass if I told the truth, that I was stupid and didn't use anything.

Congrats to this round's winners! Awesome job!

Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse

@ Lacey - Thanks so much for the compliment! I really like the voice in your beginning too, and love the tone you've set in your first 5. All of the entries are so good, yet so varied. I'm grateful to have made it this far, and I'm REALLY glad I'm not judging this thing! :)

Congratulations to all the finalists!

#66

Dragons are actually more curious than cats.

They proved it now, in the darkest corners of the Dreugan caves where the clan pretended to sleep. It was fairly difficult – the pretending – because of the human baby that was trying to wiggle her chubby hand into the black dragon’s mouth. Concerned about the burning acid that seeped from his tongue, he tightened his lips and gently nudged the toddler toward the blue dragon by his side, the one whose saliva was just cold and wet.

Obliging, the blue dragon pretended to yawn and left his mouth open so that the child could climb inside it.

Fabulous opening lines!

Congrats to those of you who made the top 10.

Such fantastic beginnings!

These are all fabulous- I can't imagine having to choose! Congratulations everyone who made it here. You are all obviously winners!

I'm waving the white flag here because these are so good. I wanted to say that you are all great hookers, but of course that doesn't sound right. But I'm so hooked by these. For each of these, I'm in awe of the author's ability to increase my interest with each successive sentence.

Anyway, here's mine, #57

Jacob shook the bamboo bars of his cage again, but they held fast. I couldn't look at him; not even when he whispered, "Blake, please."

I focused on Will, leaning casually against the cottonwood tree, a smile twitching the edge of his mouth as he watched Jacob. I wanted to feel as relaxed and confident as he looked. I had to convince myself that this experiment would work, that it would fix Jacob.

Great entries--I'm a little biased but my fave belongs to my blog Sister Lacey (LJ Boldyrev)!

Lol! Thanks Kristi!

Congrats to all the finalists! Great work guys!!!

Wow, these are all really good. At least we all get something whether we win first place or not! :)

#54 S. L. Bynum (Shanika Leiann)

There was no mistaking the darkness on the eastern horizon; they were coming.
Malaysa clutched the balcony railing as she stared out over the land in the predawn glow from the sky. The tinkling of metal tubes continued to ring out in the air; they were what had woken her up.
Her mother, standing by her side, bore a terrified expression. “Those are the alert chimes--the day we have been dreading has finally arrived."

#79
Holy crap! These are totally amazing and I can't believe I made it this far. Totally honored because I love them all.


I am suffocating inside my plastic lined steel barred cage; dying with the thickening silence and quiet sobbing coming from the other room. Locked inside for more than half of the day, my body twitches for the feel of the brisk air that causes my drool to freeze to my face. Big footsteps lumber down the stairs and instinctively I cower as far back inside my cage as possible, lowering my body to the pee-stained blanket in an attempt to make my big frame small while keeping my eyes downcast. A whine slips from me when he kneels in front of the cage, as I fear he is going to haul me out and give me a good beating. He stands, glaring at me with eyes full of hatred but then turns away, and just when I think I am in the clear he gives my cage a good hard kick, forcing it to almost roll over.

#47

The bonfire in the middle of the grand plaza of New Tikal sent sparks up to greet the low-hanging stars; the stars Mau B'ah-Pakal hoped were still speaking to him, because no one else was. He had failed his friends, offended the Emperor, and worst of all - he could barely think it - had he really shoved his grandmother?

The plaza was full of people celebrating the equinox, but Mau couldn't hide in the crowd. Although he had the chocolate skin and thick black hair of his people, his forearms and the back of his hands were covered with tattoos.

Unable to see his way through the close-packed multitude, Mau looked up to the stars and, hovering over the temple-pyramid like a thundercloud, the dark bulk of the Emperor's starship.

Yay! I'm loving reading all the entries for this contest. What a great idea. Here are my first 4 sentences:

#29
The day my parents tricked Rachel into signing herself into the “Program,” they tricked me, too, bringing me with them as a decoy. I should have known something was off when my father called a family meeting the night before. The last time we had a family meeting, my father told us our mom needed to go to the hospital for a little while so she could stop drinking. That was five years ago, when I was nine and Rachel was twelve, and I still thought a sister was someone you followed around.

Congratulations to the finalists! These are so good. Best of luck to all of you as the contest narrows down!

Awww poo, I've been cut. *sigh* Super congrats to everyone still in! I can't wait to see everyones next line! And I'm SO glad I'm not the one judging this!

#31

Mandy Samkirk had no warning of the life-changing events about to unfold; only the lingering worry from a recurring dream that nagged at her thoughts. She could still feel the shadow of evil that hung like an impenetrable cloud in the sky, the smell of decay. Cries for help echoed through her mind with panic so thick it was palpable. She squeezed her eyes shut to block the memory out; the cool kitchen counter beneath her arms anchored her to reality.

Congrats to the individuals who made it to the next round. I definitely wouldn't want to be judging this. It's getting tougher with each round.

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks for hosting this fun contest!

#43 (YA)

When Mom and Dad started throwing around the D word, I never imagined an old folk’s home would become my Post Divorce Relocation. I mean as far as top choices go, it’s right up there with a land fill. The kids at my old school would say this is karma and I had it coming. And, if I’m honest about it, maybe they’re right.

#73 (MG)

Not many people look down at a dead goldfish and wonder if that’s how they looked the day they died. Then again, I suppose not many people drown and then come back to life, either.

Only four days after The Accident, I ended up crammed around a toilet with Mom, Dad and my little brother to attend Gingersnap’s funeral. Mom had told me that Derek would understand if I wanted to skip his fish's send off, which was exactly why I'd insisted on a front row seat.

Congrats, everyone! Good luck!

#11

There’s a dead girl in the trunk and all I can think about is how white the trees are. There ain’t no street lamps on this stretch of road, but still the trees glow like they’re lit from the ground up.
“Not much farther,” Jack says.
I want to tell him he’s driving too fast, to slow down so I can get a better look at the trees, but I know we got to hurry.

These are all terrific! :)

Congrats to all the entrants! There's a lot of great stuff here!

#41

I died before I was even born.

It was April 13th, not a Friday, but it might as well have been. My mom was in labor with me as my parents’ car raced down the two-lane wooded road that passes for a highway in our part of Michigan. A thunderstorm raged, blotting out the last of the sunset.

#61

Homo sapiens sluttiwhen drunkus--the subspecies to which I apparently belong.

My best friend Ani handed me a tall, clear-glass cup of Armenian coffee, the kind her mom used for readings down at the Psychic Connection. "So did you at least use a condom?"

I shrugged.

#72

We stood side by side in the dark, me holding a pack of matches, my best friend holding the gas can.
“Burn it.” Finn’s voice was soft in the eerie nighttime silence, but full of edgy anticipation. With his face hidden in shadow under the hood of his team sweatshirt, he stared straight ahead at the school van spotlighted under the tall parking lot light.

Yay! This is so tough -- so many awesome openings here. Congrats to everyone!

#28:
Whoever said cell phones made life easier was full of BS. If it were true, then I wouldn’t have spent the past fourteen minutes sitting on my bed, half-naked, wondering why my thumb couldn’t do something as simple as press a button.

Girls did this sort of thing every day. Probably every minute at Pembroke, which meant I had just wasted fourteen—no wait, fifteen—opportunities to prove to Tommy that—damn it Kendall, just do it already.

Thanks so much for hosting this event.

Grats to all the finalists.

YAY!!! #30

Ellyssa, a.k.a. Subject 62, sprinted through the dark alley after escaping from her long-term captors who she’d thought of as family for eighteen years. Not a family in the traditional sense, but family nevertheless.

The sirens piercing the night an hour earlier had finally faded, but she still didn’t stop. Pumping her legs harder, she carried onward with the messenger bag thumping against her right thigh.

#14 -

My hope of living a normal life in Lindenville faded faster than my fifteen dollar jeans the moment I got to the school bus stop. How could anything be normal after you hear you’re living with a dead girl?

“That’s Laura’s house--you don’t belong there.”

I stared at the tall blonde who’d launched herself at me.

Adie and I were born into the same body, our souls’ ghostly fingers entwined before we gasped our very first breath. Our first few years were our happiest—then came the worries: the tightness around our parents’ mouths, the frowns lining our kindergarden teacher’s forehead, the question everyone whispered when they thought we couldn’t hear.

Why aren’t they settling?

We tried to form the word in our five-year-old mouth, tasting it on our tongue: Set—Tull—Ling.

Congratulations to everyone who passed :D I'm honored to be included here.

Wow, I didn't expect to get this far. Congrats to all the finalists!

#54

There was no mistaking the darkness on the eastern horizon; they were coming.
Malaysa clutched the balcony railing as she stared out over the land in the predawn glow from the sky. The tinkling of metal tubes continued to ring out in the air; they were what had woken her up.
Her mother, standing by her side, bore a terrified expression.

Congrats everyone!!!

#97

Life lines. Most people think of them as options game show contestants use to help themselves win a million dollars or something else just as equally lame. Me? I know different.

#18
Madame Bhut’s Finishing School in the town of Whut was known across Amalthea as a respectable place to send your daughter if you were hoping to marry her to a gentleman; not for producing evil queens with ideas of world domination. That is, until Priscilla Martin escaped.

Even before she escaped, Priscilla was less than a model student. Miss Birch, the embroidery teacher, had been horrified to find that during her second week at the school Priscilla had started embroidering skulls and crossbones instead of flowers on all her projects.

#57

Jacob shook the bamboo bars of his cage again, but they held fast. I couldn't look at him; not even when he whispered, "Blake, please."

I focused on Will, leaning casually against the cottonwood tree, a smile twitching the edge of his mouth as he watched Jacob. I wanted to feel as relaxed and confident as he looked.

#66

Dragons are actually more curious than cats.

They proved it now, in the darkest corners of the Dreugan caves where the clan pretended to sleep. It was fairly difficult – the pretending – because of the human baby that was trying to wiggle her chubby hand into the black dragon’s mouth. Concerned about the burning acid that seeped from his tongue, he tightened his lips and gently nudged the toddler toward the blue dragon by his side, the one whose saliva was just cold and wet.

#47

The bonfire in the middle of the grand plaza of New Tikal sent sparks up to greet the low-hanging stars; the stars Mau B'ah-Pakal hoped were still speaking to him, because no one else was. He had failed his friends, offended the Emperor, and worst of all - he could barely think it - had he really shoved his grandmother?

The plaza was full of people celebrating the equinox, but Mau couldn't hide in the crowd. Although he had the chocolate skin and thick black hair of his people, his forearms and the back of his hands were covered with tattoos.

#2
‘How do you punish someone who’s already dead?’ Gretchen Grey tightened her grip around an umbrella handle while she waited for her parents to arrive. Her haunted blue eyes examined the London townhouse where she had grown up. Thick green ivy cast shadow around the entrance and spread towards the outer corners, almost reaching the top floor panes.

#79
I am suffocating inside my plastic lined steel barred cage; dying with the thickening silence and quiet sobbing coming from the other room. Locked inside for more than half of the day, my body twitches for the feel of the brisk air that causes my drool to freeze to my face. Big footsteps lumber down the stairs and instinctively I cower as far back inside my cage as possible, lowering my body to the pee-stained blanket in an attempt to make my big frame small while keeping my eyes downcast. A whine slips from me when he kneels in front of the cage, as I fear he is going to haul me out and give me a good beating.

#100

In seventh grade math they taught us that a triangle is the sturdiest shape, stronger than rectangles or pentagons or anything else. And that made sense to me. I understood, almost instinctively, what we spent multiple class periods on; I knew that three points were stronger than two, that the third corner gave the shape an added strength it wouldn’t otherwise have. That third corner, I knew, was needed.

First off, I just want to say that I did not invite the aliens to drop into my backyard. At least not on purpose. So it's not like Ty and I were prepared to deal with the situation. Under the circumstances, I think we handled the whole thing pretty well.

Dearest Mother;

I know you’ve been wanting to hear the latest gossip from this end of the underworld, but the truth is, that there hasn’t been much going on since his Evil Lordship succumbed to death by piano. Hopefully you’ll be pleased that I’ve been trying not to complain about the piano not landing on Grok instead (and that I’ve only been taunting him in the gruel line at breakfast). Also, no matter what you’ve heard, I was not the one who gave him that atomic wedgie.

As for the new guy - it’s not right to speak ill of the heir to the Evil Lordship, but the kid is hopeless.