What can YOU say in six sentences?
Burning City
On the hundredth day of his walk, Kaylan awoke from a fitful sleep to see a burning city in the sky. He blinked his eyes a couple of times, thinking he might clear the leftover cobwebs of a dream, but the city still burned. He got up off the hard surface of the escarpment and stamped his feet against the cold, then he looked up. The city was still there.
It was thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of metres above him, an enormous rectangle with four great towers climbing up from each corner, not so much a city perhaps, but the walls of a city. From the rearmost towers two great trails of smoke disappeared upward to that distant place where the air of the world withers into the cold black emptiness of deep space.
PS Yet again I'm going to try and write something longer, at least a short story, maybe more. This is purely for my own pastime, and I don't intend to serialise it or anything like that, but wondered if this was a good introduction. I think the first couple of paragraphs of any story are pretty important, 'tell a story in the intro' as journalists say. Science fiction isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I've always like the genre where the character is the main interest, and all the fantastic stuff is mere background. I've no way of knowing if it ever gets finished. (And yeah, I purposely made it six sentences long :-] ).
It was thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of metres above him, an enormous rectangle with four great towers climbing up from each corner, not so much a city perhaps, but the walls of a city. From the rearmost towers two great trails of smoke disappeared upward to that distant place where the air of the world withers into the cold black emptiness of deep space.
PS Yet again I'm going to try and write something longer, at least a short story, maybe more. This is purely for my own pastime, and I don't intend to serialise it or anything like that, but wondered if this was a good introduction. I think the first couple of paragraphs of any story are pretty important, 'tell a story in the intro' as journalists say. Science fiction isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I've always like the genre where the character is the main interest, and all the fantastic stuff is mere background. I've no way of knowing if it ever gets finished. (And yeah, I purposely made it six sentences long :-] ).
Comment
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Comment by CJT on November 15, 2009 at 5:12am - Bob, I am very intrigued by this openening. I can tell you that if this was the first few paragraphs of the book, I would definately keep going. This has nothing to do with you, but knowing the quality of work you do, I would be destined to read it start to finish anyway. So yes, if it inspires you to, please keep writing it... because down the line when its finished I'll want to read it.
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