Using a Given First Line

This has always been one of my favorite ways to get my brain going and my fingers itching to write. It's basically the traditional writing prompt, but boiled down to the first line. In elementary/middle school, I remember my English teacher writing prompts on the board for when we came in to class. Our first objective was to write a story using the prompt while she got all the necessary administration duties out of the way. I LOVED these. I couldn't wait to get to English class and start on a fresh new story. As soon as I read the prompt, my mind was off and running.

It's been quite a few years (12+ to be exact) since I had such a great daily way to exercise my imagination. When I picked up writing again, after a good chunk of years pursuing a degree that was not in writing (I'm still kicking myself for that one), I feel like my imagination has gotten a little rusty. It no longer feels like it is full to bursting with ideas that I can't wait to put down on paper. I have to work harder to get back into the writing mindset that was so easy as a child.

This could be because I'm out of practice, but also because I have a much stronger sense of the difference between good ideas and bad ideas as an adult, which really narrows down the list of possible stories. This is both helpful and a drawback. It keeps me from writing space operas about steam powered monkeys who save their planet from laser shooting unicorns, but it also puts a limit on where my imagination can run. Sometimes, the best ideas sound crazy at first, and then the reasoning part of your brain can use it in a way that makes sense.

You should see some of the stories I wrote as a child. I found one recently titled The Lizard Wizard that sounded a whole lot like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets....but with lizards. There were illustrations.

But I miss being able to let my mind run amok in a giant meadow of ridiculousness and I'm desperately trying to get back in the habit. These prompts are helping me do so, but I promise I won't write about magical iguanas or even steam powered monkeys, but you will see the raw word fluff that comes out of my head in the first fifteen minutes of attempting the exercise. So here it goes.

Prompt: Begin a story using 'Where were you last night' as the first line.

Where were you last night? It was an inevitable question that I knew was coming by the thirsty look in my roommate's eyes, the conspiratorial grin smeared with toothpaste as she watched me from our shared sink. I trudged in and flopped onto my bed .

She would expect, like most college roommates, an exhilarating tale of late night house parties or bar hopping on the strip, maybe a sordid affair or two. 

She really gave me too much credit.

She will ask me for details about the night, breathless and trying hard not to show the itch of jealousy, but I won't be able to give her the story she craves. My nights weren't spent gallivanting across campus with senior boys in a drunken haze.

They were spent with creatures far more dangerous than that.

But the less Courtney knew, the safer she'd stay.



Feel free to comment with your ideas and attempts!

-Exercise from What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter