The Original Friday Flash Fiction Starter Sentences

As a moderator, as a humorist, as a font of wisdom, and as a starter sentence creator, I pale in comparison to JJ.

I've always acknowledged such, and now you will have your proof. Yet, I am not ashamed, because he was (and is, though no longer practicing as far as I know) a Flash Fiction Messiah. Whatever you might think of my writing (I'm not fishing for compliments or insults. It is what it is, and I will always try to make it better), he improved it three-fold, and he taught me how to write short fiction under pressure. JJ taught me how to get out of that comfort zone that I'm always bringing up, and how to write outside of the two genres that I rarely strayed out of.

So when I put this blog together, I wanted to do the same for others, that he had done for me. I am glad that several had answered the call, and that every single one of you have indulged me, by at least popping over here to give it the old college try. At any rate, I won't dally further and now I will present to you, the original starter sentences that JJ himself conjured.

They are not in chronological order, but hey, I culled them together, damn it! So at least give me an "A" for that alone-

"In the purple and gray morning...".

"They should make people take a test..."

"I saw her/him through the smoke…"

"A Thong
A Gong
A Pair of Tongs
Someone named Wong
A Bong"

"Arms aching"

"Her arms shackled to the stone floor and her wings constricted by leather bindings..."

"Sacrifice."

"...but the creep beat me to it.".

"And then by God, I killed the son of a bitch.".

"Vampires on a train."

"Dirt, hurt, Curt, flirt, and an orange.".

"I had never seen one before except on television…"

"1) A Girl
2)A Whirl
3)A Curl
4)Something that unfurls
5)A Hurl."

"1)Rope
2)Dope
3)Grope
4)Hope
5)Slope."

JJ gave you the choice of four sentences with:
"It all started with a ham sandwich...
How did my underwear wind up...
That can't be my mother...
He woke up, wondering where his..."

"A cry went up."

“he said little as they paddled their way along the sunken streets...”

So It Begins...

A wise and wonderful, though sometime curmudgeonly man in Texas started something wonderful a few years back. He put together a little thing Friday Flash Fiction, in which he would provide the starter sentence on Friday morning and if you so chose, you would come up with a short story or a poem by the following Monday morning.

All you had to do was say that you wanted participate in the "comment section" and then provide a link back to your story after it was done and posted on your blog. To say that this had changed my writing was an understatement. This "Friday Flash Fiction" thing taught me writing discipline and it changed how I approached writing.

As with the majority of bloggers, JJ gave up blogging and I know that I've almost done the same more times than I can count. Still, I'd like to continue on the Friday Flash Fiction tradition, to give everyone else the same opportunity I had to find their writing voices and the venue for those voices to be heard.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Friday Flash Fiction. Find your inner Bukowski, your hidden Joyce Carol Oates, and the Hammett inside of you that is waiting to bubble to the surface. Make you and everyone else proud, or at least have great time doing it.

P.S. I obviously don't remember the rules exactly as they were, so here they are-

The rules:

You will send in your suggestion for starter sentences anytime during the week up to 12:00 AM PST on Friday.*

If your sentence is not chosen and you feel it is too wonderful not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.

You will write an anecdote, short story, or novel length prose poem beginning with the sentence below.You will add comments to this post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your story.

You may join in at any time prior to the deadline.You will display your story as a post on your own blog.You will be done by Tuesday 9:00 AM PST.*


*Now, I've changed the date and times to accomodate, as well as the length requirements of the poem, yet everything else remains the same.