Week of Lists: 25 Hooks

Sherri’s post prompted me to think about the many ideas for stories and books I have. Most I record in a plain spiral notebook, or in a specially designated file on my computer.  My ideas come in different forms, frequently as flashes of images or action or dialogue from a dream, sometimes from the sound of a few words strung together, and rarely as a full concept. The most common manifestation of my ideas are as simple sentences, usually up to three, which may or may not become the first sentences of the story or novel.  These sentences are my hooks, the springboard from which my writing flows.  All my other forms of ideas will eventually become one of these simple hooks.

Today, I wish to share some with you, and create new ones also, for the time has come for my writer’s block to be broken down.  I will start with the oldest ones, some of which have already been given flesh in stories I am writing, and many still wait, like ungerminated seeds. I will finish with a few new ones that I will create today.

1. The beginning is the beginning, and the beginning is the end, but what matter do beginnings and endings have for me? Time does not exist for the non-existent.

2. Nightblade stared into the ruby eyes of the dragon.

3. The stench of refuse overpowered her, bringing tears to her eyes, that leaked out from behind tight-shut lids.

4. They did not want to do it, but upon much reflection, they all agreed it had to be done.

5. “To defeat him requires a reordering, a change, a reconstruction of the Universe.”

6. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.  I have killed many men, and I have enjoyed the killing of all, but one.

7. My parents died before I knew them. My children by my own hand. And now I am old and barren—none shall come after me to carry on my name.

8. Amalia had come to dread the sound of wedding bells.

9. They call me a witch, those who do not know me.  They call me vicious, vengeful, and vain, a woman who sought to preserve her own status by destroying the child of her husband.

10. The woman in the mirror stared back at her, eyes shimmering like stars under a veil of darkness.  The woman was a stranger to her.

11. Within the marble walls of the Tower of the Winds, a door slammed.

12. Beneath a great stone tower, a naked young woman stood shivering in the cold winter wind, consumed by fear. She knew the reputation of the Countess.

13. Cream and coffee danced and melded together like lovers in the throes of passion. Much like blood and water.

14. Popper panicked when she opened the door to the angry face of her dead lover’s wife.

15. The shadow under the earth slithered away from her feet with every step Sorcha took into Camaris

16. In every dream she had, there was the Wall, shimmering and solid in its silent insubstantiability.

17. Out of all the thousands of way that a human being could die, I think I will drown.

18. She stands, and the fire behind her licks the edges of her curves with an amber-hued desire.

19. Too late I realize she is gold.  All this time I thought she was brass.

20. He could not remember his name, so he called himself Zee, like the men in the white coats used to, before he escaped.

21. The witch still swung from the gallows, the old timbers creaking as her body flapped in the wind.

22. The city of eternal summer was dying and autumn drifted down onto marble streets like a golden snow.

23. The woman’s pulse fluttered, a struggling butterfly, under his fingers.

24. Every child born into the House of Blackthorne knew before he or she could talk that there was something very strange inside those walls.

25.  If I had any choice in the matter, I would have stayed inside my bottle.  If I had known what events would transpire, I would have stayed, damn the consequences.

The last four entries are the new ones from today.