Peanuts by Charles Schulz for August 25, 2016

“Suddenly, a shot rang out!”

@#$% writer’s block!

“Linus was sitting alone in the dark corner of his room”

I agree…we are often told that the first sentence is the hardest, while in my experience it’s Number 2 that’s the kicker!

And the president Donal Trump pressed the button to fire off the atomic bombs.

Writing poems is much more harder.

at least he has a start

What was Bulwer-Lytton’s second sentence?

Truman Capote once sat in front of a typewriter (remember those?) for a solid day and only typed one word. When asked about that, he said, “yes, but it was the RIGHT word.”

“The hairball in the sink reminded Laura that she’d never see her dog Pritzi again”. My favorite entry of all time in the Bulwer-Lytton contest. I think it took third.

Didn’t you write that yesterday, Snoopy?

Michael O’Donoghue’s advice on how to finish a story could be useful here: “Suddenly, they were all run over by a truck! The End.”

Snoopy should follow Chandler’s law…

Tidbit #2: Bulwer-Lytton was also the originator of the now- cliche phrases, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” “the great unwashed,” and “the pursuit of the almighty dollar.”

It was a dark and stormy night, and our intrepid hero maintains a lonely vigil patrolling over enemy lines in his Sopwith Camel awaiting the arrival of his arch-nemesis, the Red Barron, when suddenly in the French countryside, a flash of lightening reveals movement in the pumpkin patch …

Second line should be “All work and no play makes Snoopy a dull dog”…

One of the most famous first sentences can’t be posted in this family-friendly forum. (No, it was not written by Snoopy, and it’s probably not even the one you think it is!)

Think about it. Snoopy is a WWI Flying Ace who goes on dangerous missions. I’m sure he can think up another sentence for his novel.

Who’s with me?

xxx

From Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis (1922) – my all-time favorite opening sentence in a novel: “THE TOWERS of Zenith aspired above the morning mist; austere towers of steel and cement and limestone, sturdy as cliffs and delicate as silver rods.”.