My100: Original One-Page Story Hooks 85 and 86

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 is from that notebook, about a universe in which people duel with illusion.

But the second comes from a challenge by author John Irving, who once said "Whenever possible, tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence." (as quoted in Wired for Story by Lisa Cron) Number eighty-six is an attempt to do that.

Eighty-five:

The apple looked so real Arthur could feel his teeth crunching into it, the juice exploding in his mouth. But when he reached for it, something stopped him. He pulled back his hand, looking askance at the red globe. If it was real, what was it doing here on his desk?

And what was it really?

He sat down in his chair. Solid. It rolled back a couple inches from his desk. The desk was real, he thought. It had been this morning. He tapped it with a slim finger, and the thud rang through the office. Okay. that he could trust. But that apple? Was Carmen really that good? And if she was, he might be in serious trouble.

From the interior pocket of his jacket, he drew a thin chrome wand, about six inches long, and flicked it out to its full eighteen-inch length. It passed through the apple with no resistance.

Uh oh.

Eighty-six:

Gergely knew things had gotten very bad out there when at 6am the Hoskins’ swearword dog didn’t bark.

~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