Rami Ungar The Writer

It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday! And it’s my mother’s birthday today. And tomorrow she and her partner/fiancee of several years will finally get married. Yeah, all that’s happening this weekend. I would go into more detail on that, but that’s not what this blog is about.

But enough about that. Let’s get to why we’re here. For those of you unfamiliar, here’s the rules for this weekly blogging ritual. On Fridays, you:

1. You create a blog post on your own blog entitled “#FirstLineFriday”, hashtag and all.
2. You explain the rules like how I’m doing.
3. You post the first one or two lines of a potential story, a story-in-progress, or a completed or published story.
4. You ask your readers for feedback and encourage them to try and do #FirstLineFriday.

This week’s entry, surprisingly, doesn’t come from a story or a story idea. It’s from an idea fragment, which is basically when you have something–an image, a character, a concept, etc.–which could be part of a story but doesn’t have a story to go with. This would be like if JK Rowling had the idea for a boy wizard named Harry Potter but hadn’t yet thought up Hogwarts or Harry’s struggle with Voldemort. Great basis for a story, but where do you go from there without the magic school or the villain? It takes a bit of thought to make the fragments into full on ideas, and then actually write them. Unfortunately for me, I’ve had a lot of idea fragments swirling around my head lately, and I’ve been unable to think of a story for them yet, usually because I’m trying to think of something somewhat original that doesn’t sound like a similar story or hasn’t been done to death for the fragment. As you can probably tell, that can be difficult at times.

DAMN YOU, WORLD WHERE NOTHING UNDER THE SUN IS ORIGINAL! DAMN YOU!!!! I’m sorry, I’m just very passionate about trying to come up with stories that people feel isn’t like an already well-known story. Can you tell?

Anyway, here’s an opening that could go to this one idea fragment, assuming I actually got it to coalesce into a full-fledged story idea. Enjoy:

The little girl biked home, her blonde braids flying out behind her. She had no idea she was trying to outrun a storm that she was the herald of.

Thoughts? Errors? Let me know in the comments below.

And while you’re at it, why not try #FirstLineFriday yourself? It’s a lot of fun, and it’s great practice for writers wanting to try different openings.

In fact, I’m going to see if I can get someone into it by tagging them. I pick…Kat Impossible! Kat, you’ve been tagged. You have to participate in one #FirstLineFriday! Have fun with it!

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to be working on a couple of articles this weekend in between the wedding and everything else, so keep an eye out for them. Have a good one, my Followers of Fear!