Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
- Napoleon

Monday, June 4, 2007

First Line Contest

Samhain Publishing is having a Best First Line Contest. Three (maybe five) people will get the opportunity to get their work in front of a Samhain editor, even though submissions there are closed right now.

I sent in the first line from Spectacle. It's not the best first line in the world, I admit, and the competition is fierce from what I've seen so far. But you know what they say, you'll never win if you never try.

BTW, my first line is: "We're on in two, Alex."

I'm not the snappiest first-liner. Caldera's first line is -It has happened before.- Blink's first line is -“Doesn’t anything work right in this place any more?”- I think my best first line so far is -She stood alone by his grave, as he would have wished. - from AWJ, but the contest is for completed works of more than 12K words. (12K? Seems small for a book but whatever.)

Anyone, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Join in the fun if you have a book ready for publication. Worst that could happen is they don't pick you, and even then it'll be instructional. Right?

*new commenters to this post will be entered into the 10000 Pageviews drawing

3 comments:

Unknown said...

For what it's worth I've done. i like your first lines btw :-)

B.E. Sanderson said...

Oooo. I like your first line, too. I hope they pick you for the next round. =o)

Tia Nevitt said...

Thanks for posting this. I went ahead and entered. My first line:

Abriel crept toward the illuminated partition, careful to avoid casting a shadow on the papyrus screen.

Yours is intriguing. Sounds like TV, and almost everyone is fascinated by what goes on behind the scenes on TV.