Beyond ‘Once upon a time’

Several months ago — maybe even a year — I purchased a book called Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain. I love this book. The whole thing is just oozing with creativity, and I dare you not to find a single exercise you want to do right away.

Since sometimes I need a little help coming up with a post, I thought, Hey! Why not use Caffeine for inspiration every now and then? But I couldn’t decide whether I should do them here or at Oomphasis, so I compromised. I’ll do primarily writing exercises here, and design/art exercises there, whenever the need for creative exercise strikes. It makes sense.

So here it is: Create ten single-sentence story openings. Don’t worry about what might come after, just grab the reader’s attention. “Once upon a time…” doesn’t count. (From Caffeine for the Creative Mind, p. 235)

1. She stayed there, face first in the snow, taking a moment to consider how best to emerge from her present situation unhumiliated.
2. Owen didn’t mean for his voice to carry through the atrium — but it did — and now the janitor, two ladies from Accounting on the third floor, Kyle the receptionist, and Bob Lipnisky knew that the rumor about Eva Wallace was at least partially true.
3. Standing in the middle of the Target parking lot, and dressed like a striped bass, Clifford was bound to attract a fair bit of attention.
4. There was an ear-crushing, bone-rattling rumbling roar across the parade grounds as an F-18 cruised low overhead, and the Lieutenant realized for the hundreth time this week that this was not at all where she thought she’d be.
5. Not even the mob spitting venomous words at Danny Matthews could make him change his mind, not even when they began throwing things at the barrier of riot police, not even when the whole thing ended in a cloud of tear gas, seventeen arrests, and the trampling death of a twenty-two year old protester.
6. Jason knew the chances were very, very small that closing his eyes would make it all go away — but there’s always a chance, and he took it.
7. She could hear her parents approaching fast, and as she stared at the heap of pine branches, still glowing with tiny white lights that made the shattered glass glitter against the ebony floor like her mother’s favorite beaded gown, Norah assured herself that they were not likely to banish her, on account of her prodigious musical skill.
8. The cursor blinked, waiting impatiently for me to type something, but the editor in my head kept all thoughts from reaching my fingers.
9. I saw her give the signal — two counter-clockwise turns of her left cubic-zirconia stud earring with her thumb and forefinger — and with the target in perfect position, I went for it.
10. Maybe it was the humidity, maybe it was the Communion wine, maybe it was his abhorrence for the wacknoodle who was marrying his nephew, but there was something about standing in that prayer-silenced cathedral that made Father Cameron Burby want to tear off his vestments and sprint headlong into the ancient stone wall.

Now you try!