My100: Original One-Page Story Hooks 75 and 76

The challenge: 100 first-page story hooks in sixty days. Just the first page (or less), and it has to hook the reader to want more. Today I'm 3/4 of the way done. It's been an interesting ride.

The reward (for me): I have two writing notebooks crammed full of story ideas. It occurs to me that here's a chance, with these hooks, to try writing what's in them, just the first page, try it out, see if it has legs. The first of these is from the written notebook, about a girl whose drawings come to life. But apparently only dragons, which I didn't know until I started writing the piece.

The second one, though, comes from a short--but very interesting--conversation I had on the Writing Workshop Discord Channel with the eminent @jhagi.bhai There was this line, and as soon as I wrote it I knew I had to use it. Most ideas have to wait longer, but this one just got lucky.

Seventy-five:

All my life, I have learned to call the wind. Every intaken breath, every waken moment, I labored to learn the craft, one of a handful so dedicated, so called. My growing skill was a sunrise, an exultation, a testament to generations of lore and untold sacrifice on the part of thousands. I became the finest practitioner of the art in a century.

Then this boy. Calling the breeze from the cradle. Summoning wind as easily as smiling. Feeling the joy of the gale as one born to it. All I could do, and more, before he was twelve.

I will kill him. How can I not?

Photo Credit

Seventy-six:

She rolled down her window and stuck her hand out. At forty miles an hour, she arrowed it into the wind and angled it up and down, a fish swimming through the muggy Philly air.

“How was your eclair?” Richard said. He downshifted. The light coming up steadfastly refused to change.

Slower speeds left her aerodynamic experiment with too little lift. “Better than sex,” she said.

He didn’t say anything, but she cocked her head and saw something in his face. “You don’t think so?”

“It would have had to be pretty good,” he said. The light changed, but the car in front was slow off the line.

“It was.”

“I mean, really good.”

“It was really good. Superb. Outstanding.”

He shook his head, but the corners of his mouth refused to flatten. She said, “What?”

“Just...I’m pretty confident the sex I’ve had is better than mascarpone in pastry, that’s all.”

She laughed, light and free, sending sparks up his spine. His pulse sped up. “Well, most of my sex has been by myself, so…”

He had the pedal down now, and the car revved, heading out of the city, away from where they weren’t together, to a place where they might be. “I suppose sex of that kind could be improved by the addition of mascarpone, yeah,” he said. Maybe it was an accident, but when her hand came down on his, she didn’t move it away.a

---

If you're looking for writing help--and who isn't--there are a lot of good editors on the Discord channel. I recommend it.

~Cristof

P.S. This series is the brainchild of The New Creatives, which challenged us to create 100 of something as a way of attaining mastery of a particular art form (or beginning the process, more like). This is my attempt. #TNCmy100