I’ve seen the beloved First Lines meme going around again, so I figured I’d join in. Here are the opening sentences of several works-in-progress.

“Why have you brought me here, doctor?” the Chairman asked, in a voice like the stillness just before a storm.

– [Undisclosed work-for-hire book]

I’m the goddess of death, but only part time.

–Bride of Death, Marla Mason #7

(Yes, I’m toying with writing it in first person.)

I thought that thing where a long-lost great-grand-uncle you’ve never heard of dies and leaves you a house was just something that happened in the movies: but here I am, standing on his front porch, hoping I won’t get tetanus from touching the rusty doorknob.

– Heirs of Grace

I left home more than twenty years ago, and haven’t been back since; so why do I still think of it as home at all?

– “The Cold Corner”

Because she couldn’t think of any other way to survive, Marla Mason called a council of war.

– “Mongoose”

The thing that was not a cloak opened its three-score eyes and saw an ugly blue sky.

– “The Cloak: A Selective History”

And that’s it. Not so many works-in-progress, really; I even have reasonable expectations that I’ll finish all of them.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.