Post the first three paragraphs of your novels!

ivanskilling 2020-04-29 13:00:00 UTC #172

The trial was over in a few minutes. There was no need for a jury, or for witnesses. As the defendant cried and pleaded his case, the stone-faced judge only had to tap a few keys on the keyboard to bring up the appropriate CCTV footage of the incident.

Every single argument made by the defendant was shot down expertly with a simple turn of the dial to pan and zoom into the high definition video footage. There was no angle left uncovered, no detail left unnoticed, no rock left unturned with the nationwide surveillance program.

Finally, the defendant turned quiet. He had exhausted all his energy and spirit. Defeated, he listened to the judge deliver the sentence.

surenlicious 2020-04-29 13:05:36 UTC #173

"Tell me this." It is not a request Vandrake states as he kneads at his forehead hoping all the anger management lessons aren't about to fail him. "Which one of you thought it was a good idea to send my diplomat to a unholy field of time and expect him not to be shredded to pieces? Hm? Anyone?"

No one worth their salt dares to answer the Southern Kingdom Duke without knowing their own minds are about to be eaten by the Vritra in charge. Their silence makes Vandrake want to eat everything that didn't have any scales in the room, but the Principles of Truth run strongly in his bones still. For now at least.

And so he snarls, aggressively waving his hand at the group gathered as he turns his back to them. "Leave, all of you. And don't let my marble doors hit your behinds on your way out."

amberberry 2020-04-29 14:51:24 UTC #174

The atmosphere in the classroom was more restless than usually. The day every student in the class had been dreading for a while had arrived.

At the beginning of the semester, the principal had announced a new experimental course for the seniors where they would learn skills needed in the future, such as taxation and caring about finances, taking care of house, relationships, and childcare. Especially the last few topics hadn't excited many of the boys but most of the girls weren't thrilled either.

The course had gone past surprisingly quickly, and it had been informative too. The course had been formed to fit the students’ interests and needs from most parts, so they had focused on many things they had considered important. But now they had reached the last topic: childcare. On a few extremely awkward lessons they had talked about pregnancy and what would have to be considered with it. Their teacher had tried to cheer up the class by telling about "an exciting project" they'd do to finish the course. Everyone worried what it would mean.

CeeMTaylor 2020-04-30 01:01:27 UTC #175

Foul air clung to the town like a pestilent blanket. The breeze had died days earlier, leaving the inland provinces to suffer in sweltering, stagnant heat. A thick silence reigned. Even the animals had fled. Nothing moved but for a few wisps of smoke rising from smoldering ruins.

Valory bar Adrianth picked his way down a side street, sun beating on his shoulders as he searched a row of houses for survivors. Fire had ravaged many of them. Walls were scorched, roofs caved in, and the smell — the smell alone would churn even the most hardened of stomachs. He had spent the morning with a kerchief tied around his nose and mouth, though it still took all of his willpower not to gag.

Approaching yet another fire-blackened doorway, he paused as his eyes fell upon a pair of nails driven into the frame. His boots traced patterns in ash as he moved about the stoop, fingers snagging on several more pairs of nails hammered into the other side. A frown tugged at his lips. He wondered whether, in his rush to clear through each of the houses, he had missed other such details. Then again, perhaps such details were lost. Most of the buildings suffered far worse fates than this one. Fire hadn’t ravaged it as thoroughly as its neighbors.

blazeriddle 2020-04-30 08:32:21 UTC #176

The first time I met Shay, my boss had tied her to a radiator pipe.

I’m not sure if it’s the right point to start this account, but it is the moment I met her, and it made for quite a first introduction. Maybe one day, when I have time to do more research, I’ll properly describe what happened before, but for now, I’ll stick to my own account.

So, there she was, tied to a metal pipe, shouting abuse at all. I was sent in to look through her phone, but I needed her fingerprint to get in. (Hacking is much easier when you don’t have to.) I was scared to get close; her reputation preceded her. The men bringing her in had all come back damaged; she’d kicked one of them in the kidney so forcefully his piss turned orange. He went to hospital, together with the man she punched in the liver hard enough he turned into a sack of potatoes.

kiragin003 2020-05-21 04:50:55 UTC #177

The fires spotted the sand like a plague. The wind buffered my coat as I stood on the highest point for miles. The jutting piece of red stained stone overlooked the desert that had just recently been my arena. I sat perched atop just so I could see the carnage I had left. From each billowing thick black smoking pile to the permanently blood-stained sand and rocks, I could still hear the sounds of death and fighting. When the wind blew in my direction the smoke from the burning corpses enveloped me. The smell of burnt barbecue is now stuck on me for days. It sickened me. I hated the fact that I was the one who killed them all. All those soldiers were just doing their job, but this was war. Casualties are a given. Regardless of what I felt, I had a job to do too. Now that it was completed I needed to head back to the front lines.

“Algea.”

I whipped around at the sound of my name. I already knew who had spoken, but I was still a little on edge after my fight. Standing a few feet away was my commanding officer Enyo. She stood nonchalantly with her twin sickle scythes by her side, and her long straight black hair whipping in the wind. She was in her standard battle gear of a simple triangular patterned dress, open toed sandals, and her terrifying signature mask. The mask is composed of reinforced pig leather stitched together in a Frankenstein fashion. The only thing the mask allows you to see of Enyo is her eyes, but where her mouth is, the stitching creates a large smile. That thing unnerves me, but I guess that is part of its job. As I stood there, Enyo scanned the wreckage behind me.

themerrytroll 2020-05-21 06:22:32 UTC #178

Lily McQueen decided she did not like tonight's party. She was feeling like an unwelcome guest -- a permanent wallflower left alone with a bottle of cold beer.

She knew very well she shouldn't have come but there she was, standing next to an abstract painting of a Jack Russell dog named "Pippin" and trying not to be the sorry and permanent wallflower that she was.

Then why come and be awkward around these people? Because she was bored at home, she admitted to herself.

emrowene 2020-05-21 19:28:13 UTC #179

Leandros Nochdvor almost regretted visiting Illyon. It was a dingy, self-important little city; smoke from its factories turned its sky gray, its lower neighborhoods reeked from a sewage system that hadn’t adapted to fit the growing population, and at times, it seemed Atiuh Himself had forsaken the place.

There wasn’t much good to be said about Illyon, but its people were proud of their city and glad to live in it, which was more than could be said for other cities on the brink of industrialization. And to Leandros, it beat staying home. He'd known what he was getting himself into when he'd asked to accompany his uncle on his business trip, and he'd known what he was getting himself out of— a week alone with only his mother for company. He'd done the calculations, and he'd made his choice.

Illyon’s factories played a crucial role in Alfheim’s trade, so at the very least, that promised interesting business discussions. It didn’t make Illyon itself easier to bear. The small city sat far removed from fashionable society and any unusual goings-on, which left Illyon’s people far less interesting than they believed themselves to be.

Or so Leandros had thought, anyway. That was before “unusual” slammed bodily into him in a public market.

(I cheated and added a single extra line. Forgive me)

Mithril 2020-05-21 19:49:42 UTC #180

The first time I saw King he was walking towards the bar, his hair almost neon under the club’s purple lights. He was an unusual sight, with his gray dyed hair, black suit, pierced ears, and silver rings. He touched the edge of the bar and leaned towards me, lifting himself on the tips of his feet. His eyes were gray under the transparent frames he was wearing. He looked rich like everyone else who came in. Rich and eccentric.

“Excuse me,” I remember him saying that because I was almost certain he was going to snap his fingers at me. He didn’t, so I turned around towards him.
“What can I get you?”

He smiled - a row of perfectly white teeth – “How about another one of those outrageously expensive Sidecars you have?” He asked. It was good to know the man was willing to drop 400 dollars on a glass of cognac.

sisteroffortune 2020-05-22 23:38:03 UTC #181

Prolog

It was spring and the temperature was balmy, and the sun was warm and bright. The best part was that with the window down on her side and the other rolled down enough for her dog to sniff and catch the breeze she could smell the scents of pine trees, cut grass and a dairy farm. Piety Jones drove her ancient Jeep Cherokee with the windows down and her dog road shot gun in the passenger’s seat. The dog happily sniffed the air quivering as he fanned his cinnamon and brown tail at the prospect of running through the woods.

The woman was late twenties and already had two divorces under her belt and her entire life compressed into the Jeep and a small tow behind U-Haul. The dog was not quite a year old and Piety loved him dearly. In all the craziness and sorrow of her second failed marriage the unlikely pet had been a source of comfort and solace. The dog unfailingly loved her and as they drove so many miles from North Carolina to New York. The dog, she had named Finnegan, listened to her pour out her heart and fears and in return gave no judgement or comment. Piety had not seen her aunt since she was kid living at home with her parents. The memory had been a bright spot in an otherwise rocky childhood where her parents often hated one another, united under the sway of religious dictatorship and mutual racism, with an all-around intolerance for anything they decided was not "normal". Her Aunt Charity had appeared in her childhood home’s doorway like a fairy god mother for a magical stay. Aunt Charity challenged Piety’s father, Leonard Jones and her sister Mercy constantly fought with Charity's views of women’s rights, religious freedom for every religion and equality for everyone.

After a two week visit the girl’s father ordered Aunt Charity off his property and to never return. The last straw was after one dramatic blow up over her assertion that Christ, popular to all his depictions, was not a white man. The sobbing child watched from her bedroom window as the van left the driveway with tears streaming down her face. In those two weeks her aunt had been there had been no whippings for having a smart mouth. The girl’s parents’ fights had not escalated to the horrendous screaming matches heard through the heating vents accompanied by crashes of things being thrown. Miraculously not once had daddy called her little brother a pussy or fag boy till, he cried. Somehow Aunt Charity had made an oasis of calm in a hateful turbulent world. Under her pillow all those years ago was found a business card to a shop:

Bell Book and Candle Metaphysical shop

For all your occult needs

Main street Pulaski New York

Proprietor Charity

315-555-1212

ivanskilling 2020-05-31 12:45:44 UTC #182

As a kid, it was always easy to tell myself, “When I grow up, I’m never going to be like Mum and Dad.” In retrospect, parents don’t have it easy.

There’s a thousand and one ways in which things could go wrong. Most of the time, those wrong things are just small ripples in the current of time that eventually rights itself again. And then, there are those rare occasions - those that you never think will happen to you - where the small ripples are compounded and cause a large tidal wave that leaves nothing but destruction.

A long time ago, my dad told me of one such occasion. Now, each time I look at my kid, I tell myself this.

Remember.

SmokeAndOranges 2020-06-01 14:41:25 UTC #183

Even before the gondola door slid open, the air of the port of Dakshin Tat crept over Rav like a wet, soiled blanket left too long in the sun. He shot a nervous glance around him. The burly mechanic beside him remained asleep, snoring like an engine with a loose bolt. The engineer across the gondola shuffled his drawings into a dapper leather briefcase, then stood, triggering a collective shuffling and rising as the ferry coasted down. Rav copied the other passengers. By long habit, his shoulders curled down to render his small frame even more inconspicuous.

Grime papered the windows of the ferry, but experience told Rav the moment the dockhands below grabbed its mooring ropes and swung it around. It bobbed with the sudden tethering. Over the slowing engines came the squeal of a rusty winch, and the foggy ground out the window crept up to meet the gondola. A ladder fell to the dock with a clunk. The door clunked a reply and was hauled ajar.

Hot, humid air scented like coal smoke and rotting fish rolled through the cabin. Mechanics, dockhands, engineers, flight marshalls, sailors, and a man with the uniform of a captain jostled to be first to spill out onto a wood landing deck. Rav found himself last to disembark. He scurried past an impatient serviceman waiting for the ladder to clear. The man swung himself into the gondola and pulled up the ladder.

thedude3445 2020-06-03 08:14:20 UTC #184

I don’t believe in love at first sight.

You do? That’s because you’re still too young. You’ll come to grips with that when you’re older. There are no soulmates, no destinies intertwined by the Gods. Love comes only when you work for it. The best we can hope for is infatuation at first sight, and that’s not quite as poetic.

What? You… Oh. No, me loving you at first sight doesn’t count since I’m your grandmother. I’m talking about the romantic kind of love. That kind of love where two people create real magic together.

Leverance 2020-06-03 08:21:37 UTC #185

Tyrell's slender pale fingers flew over the keyboard. Each click echoed in the room. Tyrell worked on a new system for the company. It was supposed to be groundbreaking.

Then he heard a ping. Tyrell's brows furrowed. Usually, he would rarely have any new messages from anyone. He glanced around nervously. His expensive marble door remains locked. The pitch-black desk in the middle of the room is neatly packed with technical magazines.

There were three bookshelves filled to the brim with books. Huge windows to the hot summer sun. Nothing to raise suspicion.

queen_of_spades 2020-06-03 10:11:38 UTC #186

Hi... great idea... thank you! these are the first 3 paragraph of my novel: Delilah, forever. Please do not read only episode 1... my episodes are small .

https://tapas.io/series/Delilah-forever

LadyN 2020-06-03 10:22:44 UTC #187

I am yet to post this so what is being posted here is basically a preview in a way

I am not safe. This world is topsy-turvy. You could be having the time of your life before your life string is cut short, or cut entirely. You could be perfect content with life before a tragedy occurs. A world that fakes out the entities is not a well built one.

I tell others of woeful tales and stories of travelers and warriors of the past. They all end similarly, with the hero winning and the enemy country or villain losing and/or dying. Legends of dragon slayers and demon hunters. And most importantly, stories of gods and the dreadful mark they left on humanity.

Everytime I tell them these things, they just laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh. Gods are the highest beings and all these stories I told them were just writing that I found in a book that my deceased mother left behind. Before then she’d read to me and my sisters about glory and trivious adventures. Now those tales are what is left in my memory. And this town of desperate believers, praying for the gods to bring prosperity back to our land.

JWZagst 2021-01-08 20:32:13 UTC #188

Here's mine:

In a dark stone basement illuminated only by the bluish-white light of a glowing crystal ball, a lone figure stood before a large circular oak table, at the center of which sat the aforementioned sphere. The mysterious person was clad in flowing black robes, their face cloaked in shadow beneath a voluminous hood as they peered into the magical orb, gloved hands on the edge of the table.

Suddenly, the air began to shimmer and warp in multiple spots around the room, and twelve people materialized seemingly out of nowhere in a rapid sequence of bright multi-colored flashes. They were all wearing black robes as well with their faces concealed, but unlike the first figure, they were partially transparent, nearly phantom-like with an ethereal glow around their silhouettes.

“Why have you summoned us?” one of the new arrivals demanded angrily, speaking in an upper-class London English accent. The voice was clearly that of a sharp-tongued old woman, but it sounded ghostly and had a slight echo.

https://tapas.io/series/NewMalloryDane/info

milejdyvan 2021-01-02 13:58:35 UTC #189

Here are mine... As a second enquiry, I'd like to ask if anyone is willing to help, what is wrong with my first three paragraphs? I've had more than one person say it's bad and I can't wrap my head around it. I don't have a plan to change it unless I have a concrete idea. Any feedback would be much appreciated!

The sun burned hot above the coastal city of Ancio in the late summer. It was the day for a young sixteen-year-old boy called Mathiaz Rider. He woke up this Sunday morning, knowing he would forever abandon the city he was raised in. Despite the heat, Mathiaz donned a leather jacket, a sports shirt, and beige jogger pants. He then climbed onto the roof of his orphanage with his favorite but unkempt sneakers. That was where he found himself now, enacting on his revenge and facing the unfair cruelty bestowed upon him.

A grin spread across Mathiaz’s linear cheeks—the smell of spray paint fumes outweighed the fresh salty air—the hissing of his spray can thrust him into a storm of emotions. Adrenaline, one would call it, but not this boy; he perhaps couldn’t even define that word. Mathiaz stood undiscovered atop the overhang of his orphanage, spray-painting the beaten walls.

“Fire! There’s fire! Someone get the extinguisher!” a lady screamed inside the century-old orphanage, seizing the rascal’s attention. Her hysterical outcry entertained Mathiaz and didn’t disrupt the creation of his masterpiece at all; the roof tiles beneath his feet creaked as he shook the can and sprayed the stone wall. The classical architectural design of the early nine-hundredths meant little to him, and thus, the vibrant oranges and spiral details of the windows fell victim to Mathiaz’s spray can—his tool of justice.

domisotto 2021-01-02 13:59:56 UTC #190

From Lone Werewolf:

Geometry classes always dragged on.

Alcohol left Volya's math teacher with a spongy nose and trembling hands. Every line he drew wobbled. A 3D prism was out of the question, yet he persisted.

His one hand clutched three markers, in case one of them preferred death to humiliation. The other hand fidgeted with the collar to release the building-up heat.

KhanSpring 2021-01-02 14:00:16 UTC #191

Joining in:
"Bring the witch here!" Said the young boy, trying to sound as demanding as he could, but his voiced trembled at the last word. In his head was going "Father would have know how to say it, but father is dead, so is mother". They weren't just dead, they were murdered...

"Bring the witch to us!" another person said. The voice was determined and controlled. Albena did not raise her voice, she never does, she just looked the old servant in the eyes and said the words. How was she always able to do it.

"Grandfather Stoyo, you are the oldest servant here, please help us! We have no time to lose, she can be saved! We... we beseech you!" He can't show his tears. Not now, he has to be strong for his sisters. For mother and father.