Sentence starter #1: 150 words

[Doctor Setebos]

You know the drill. Or, actually, maybe you don't. Sentence starters are a fairly simple concept. I'll post a sentence. You write everything that follows that sentence. That's it. It's just flash fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction). Make it interesting. Make it compelling. Make it yours.

This time, however, I've added a slight twist to the idea. Each sentence starter will include a specific word count goal. It won't be much to start (150 in this initial starter), but with every new sentence starter, I'll add more to the goal for more industrious writers (staying well within the technical limitation for flash fiction of ~1,000 words). Every now and then I'll throw in a smaller word count starter just for fun. The word count should NOT include the initial sentence provided.

The word count won't be a hard and fast goal, merely a suggestion. But for those that wish to use sentence starters as true exercises in forced writing, it will be welcome practice in attempting to stick to set goals.

So, without further ado, here's your first sentence starter:

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury.

[EWolfmanD]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. He had desperately looked for it everywhere, but he could find no trace of it besides a faint smell lingering in the air. His head whipped from side to side frantically, his eyes sliding past the frightened patrons gathered along the wall without noticing them. The search fully consumed him. The guests attempted to make themselves smaller to avoid his rage, but they were of no concern to him. More dishes flew around the room, their contents staining his coat, but this too fell below his notice. The path of destruction had almost cleared the room of tables and diners, except for one. Finally, he set his cold, beady gaze upon the last customer sitting. He had noticed the crumbs indicating the fate of his prize, and his whiskers shook as he unleashed a yell of primal anger. You really shouldn't have eaten the last piece of cheese.

[VerseD]

(Started writing and couldn't stop, so it's more than 150 words, something I always seem to have a problem with. Hopefully you guys aren't so harsh as my professors.)

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. For too long Ermine had endured the worst the world could offer. Cold streets, wet skies, greasy soup, and a jacket so small it pinched his shoulders and left his hands sore and red. His hair was falling out and his teeth felt like he'd spent all morning gnawing on concrete. Well Ermine wouldn't stand for it, not today and not from a wealthy well-to-do like Thomas Horton.

What else was there to call a man who every afternoon stepped from the waxed slopes of his luxury sedan and every night guided a different perfume-scented arm belonging to a giggling set of legs and breasts up the dozen stairs to the Old Town Cityfront Hotel that held his penthouse, under the corner of which shivered Ermine and his pall Boxcar? Jack the building's doorman called Mr. Horton a philanderer, but Ermine called him a hustling bodaddy.

On the night Mr. Horton dropped a bucket of ice from the tinted window of his million dollar penthouse onto the wool-covered heads of Ermine and Boxcar, Ermine called him a lowdown pile of nothing who didn't deserve a god damn cent and wasn't worth enough to scrape clean the infamously disgusting bathrooms at the sixth street subway with his own wig. He called Mr. Horton many other things until Boxcar said, "You should do somthin' at all this Ermine," and they spent the rest of the night plotting.

So the next day at noon, Ermine came into the building through the alley door that the janitor used, went up the empty marble staircase that circled the stylish grated elevator, kicked open Thomas Horton's antique oak door, smashed Mr. Horton's furniture with a baseball bat he found in an umbrella bin, shattered the globe on Mr. Horton's desk with one good swing, and replaced his own too-tight jacket with a designer rain coat. Sore and sweating, he left the Old Town Cityfront Hotel and smiled with his rotten teeth even though it drizzled miserably in the street.

[Sazime]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. "Where is he?!" Tim thought, "WHERE DID HE GO?!!" He could hear the yelling behind him, telling him to stop. He could not, he would not until he got what he wanted. Throwing away everything in sight, he tripped and stumbled as he almost blinding reached forward. He felt objects crunch under his feet, their new jagged edges poking and prodding, as if to create another barrier between him and his goal. "It was just here? Where could he have gone to?" Fear gripped him. What would he do without his friend? What would happen to him without that one thing he needed the most when the lights went out and the monsters closed in? He knew that if he did no succeed soon, he would be stopped and it would be lost forever. Just as he mother entered the room and reached for him, he found it. Little Timmy got his teddy bear, just in time for bed!

[the Jack]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury.

It had been a long night in Cubicles, the office-supply warehouse that he'd worked in for few years. First Charlotte, the night manager, had made sure to piss all over him for forgetting to triple-copy a packing manifest.

"I would've, but the machine ran out of paper," he'd told her, hiding behind his clipboard.

"Chrissakes Wally, we're a OFFICE SUPPLY WAREHOUSE. You know what that means? Were in the business of SUPPLYING OFFICES. And what do offices most often need supply of?"

"Coffee?"

"You're an imbecile. I regret ever giving you a job. If I hadn't owed your father such a major favor I'd never even have considered it."

A small mistake, but the first small snowflake that would snowball larger and larger until an avalanche of anger poured forth from the mousy night stockist.

(I'm aware that O is a vowel, it's just how she talks)

[Khrymsyn]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. "WHERE IS IT?!" he thought with a rage. Barker charged out of the kitchen, and through the living room, knocking over more knick-knacks and a lamp off the coffee table. He ripped through the couch cushions, and flipped all of the padding off of the chairs. Not finding what he was looking for, Barker was determined to go check upstairs, so raced up the steps, only to find his nemesis...


A child proof safety gate.

Barker wailed in dissapointment as he walked back down the steps to take a drink from his doggie bowl.

[Expugnare]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. The culmination of their work had been realized at last.

Dr. Chen turned to his assistant, "See," he said, "Humans shall no longer be slave to their urges now that we can create emotion with a chemical tonic. Rage is just the beginning." They walked off together, oh so sure of the magnificence of their successful experiment, their arrogance blinding them to the risks of toying with human nature.

Subject0000F3 continued his rampage behind bullet proof glass and triple-locked steel doors. The sterile environment seemed compound this hate, working it into a crescendo of awesome wrath. At a cellular level, stored fats rapidly metabolized, visibly draining his body but granting him an absurd reserve of strength. In the end, it appears that a sufficiently motivated man can unleash more force than bullets as with a single pounce he shattered the solitary window. Alarms sounded. Guards responded. Shots were fired. Not even 5.56x45mm rounds could break his ire. The guards didn't stand a chance. Subject0000F3 was no longer man but a flash of flesh, beating and breaking his tormentors. Suddenly he dropped alongside his victims. His assault had consumed his body from the inside, leaving a husk of skin and bones remaining.

"Why are you calling me at such an hour?"
"Dr. Chen, I think you should see this."

218 words not including the starter sentence.

[shunoshi]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. He fell to the floor writhing in agony as skin stretched and bones popped from their sockets.

Simon recoiled in horror at the scene unfolding before him. "This can't be happening!" thought Simon as he watched clothing tear and tufts of hair sprout from the man's body. "This only exists in stories...." Simon's mind struggled to rationalize. He shrank into the corner of the room, fear gripping him as the creature rose to its feet. A solitary tear broke from the corner of Simon's eye and trailed down his stubble covered cheek. He glanced out the nearby window to see the moon, bright and full, creep lazily from behind the cloud cover.

"How beautiful," Simon thought, "Is this how it ends?"

Simon flinched and dropped to his knees as a concussive shot rang out. He looked up in time to see the abomination collapse to the floor, a pool of thick onyx slowly forming from beneath it. A dark, cloaked figure stood in the now open doorway casting a long shadow across the fresh corpse which appeared to be losing its hideous form in death. Hair disappeared beneath skin, claws retracted, and bones reset themselves. Within moments all that lay before Simon was a dead man; all evidence of the monster had vanished.

"Have you been bitten?" questioned the stranger in a soft, but gravelly, voice.

"N-n-no," stammered Simon, still unable to process what had just happened.

"Get up," commanded the man, ejecting a cartridge from his rifle. It landed on the floor at his feet, trailing wisps of smoke. He unholstered a revolver from his belt and tossed it across the room. Simon fumbled with the weapon, but managed to hold on.

"There are more coming."


I think I overshot the target a bit and landed around 250 words. :o

[roboninja]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. Who was he mad at? That Debbie from the mailroom, with her beautiful smile and flirting ways, who then got nervous and stopped talking to him when he asked her out. The guy who can never pick what type of coffee he wants at Starbucks every morning. The delivery guy who never gives thanks for the tip, and always looks at him like he is crazy. Everyone. He was angry at the world. Life was a harsh mistress, and he was ready to yell the safe word. But all that did not matter anymore. It would be over soon. He began to calm, letting the rage leave him. He fed Snuggles, the only good thing in his life, but even that did not really cheer him up like it used to. It was time. He put on his coat, picked up his gun, and went out to end it.

[Shadowstorm]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. Filled to the brim with unrelenting anger, he yelled, "Where is it!? Where is it?! WHERE DID IT GO?!" Suddenly, an older man burst through the door in the room where the boy was searching. "CALM DOWN. Take a deep breath. We'll help you find it."

The boy put his efforts into overdrive, tearing bedsheets in half, throwing objects through his tiny window, and making obscene remarks about anything his mind could touch on. "FUCK YOU! I WANT IT, I WANT IT RIGHT NOW!"

A petite woman who appeared to be no less than thirty five years of age calmly walked in the room. The two males gradually calmed down and focused their eyes upon her. She walked near the boy's drawer, opened it, her hands calmly moving in it. "Ahh, here it is."

"OH LAWD, THANK YOU MOM, YOU FOUND IT!"

In her hands, she held up the sacred object: a Game Boy Advance. None of them knew that his rage would triple in intensity when he discovered the batteries were dead.

[National Kato]

(150 words even. I love a lot of what has been posted already - especially VerseD's entry - but we should really all strive to match the word count. Limits force you to be economical and I find it produces stronger work.)

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. Jealousy was a slow burn. It was also, Alain reflected, quite unlike him.

Looking around the small apartment, breath ragged and heavy, he realized all of this accomplished nothing. What's done was done and this thrashing and gnashing wasn't going to change a thing. Simone was having an affair. He felt his jaw tighten, his teeth grind. Simone was having an affair. The very order of those words drove a knife into his heart. His chest felt on fire. His head throbbed. Is this what dying feels like? Would serenity and peace also follow?

He relaxed his clenched right fist and placed the crumpled paper on the countertop. Smoothing out its wrinkles with both hands, a part of him wished the motions would wipe away the printed words like grime from a window, so that he could see clearly again, instead of through these tears, what his relationship had become.


.

[shunoshi]

Good write-up, Kato. I dig your writing style, good metaphors. I fail at the 150 word count. :o

[Doctor Setebos]

(150 words even. I love a lot of what has been posted already - especially VerseD's entry - but we should really all strive to match the word count. Limits force you to be economical and I find it produces stronger work.)While I absolutely agree with the idea of practicing within set constraints, in the OP I clearly stated that the word count is nothing more than a suggestion. People can choose to follow it, or completely ignore it. Those who want to work at writing within a target goal can choose to do so, and will likely end up with excellent writing as a result of the added effort. But it isn't something we can enforce in any reasonable way. In any case, I meant it as a goal to shoot for, not necessarily contain yourself within.

Your excellent contribution is a perfect example of what can be accomplished with a proper combination of talent and a word count focus.

[Young Al Capone]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury.

How could he have let this happen?

When Rose had told him she was leaving two nights ago he laughed, laughed right in her face. Where to? There was nowhere to go, and they hadn’t seen anyone but each other in months.

She’ll be back.

Except that she still hadn’t come back. He looked around the filthy, empty diner as the dust settled, the only clean spots made so by his recent tirade. His decision had been made as soon as the bottle of whiskey he had come for smashed against the wall. He would go back to her.

If he could at least manage to not die alone that might be enough. Four months ago his life had been decimated through no fault of his own, a new life had grown out of the ruins of the old world and he had destroyed that himself.

He winced at the thought as he stepped out into the gridlocked but deserted street.

That was so very difficult, and I still only managed to have a half completed premise in 176 words.

[Doctor Setebos]

That was so very difficult, and I still only managed to have a half completed premise in 176 words.That's the beauty (and the pain) of flash fiction. You don't need to establish everything, just the smallest bits that help tie meaning into what you've written. If you want to establish that your character is an alcoholic, do that. If you want to establish that the setting is 15th century France, do that. But those should be quick, painless, and not entirely obvious - just carefully hinted, as in briefly passing. The rest is telling a compelling narrative in the span of a few short sentences.

[Wraith]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury. A fury borne of fear, of powerlessness and desperation. He lashed out at the physical, as his true tormentor refused to take physical form.

How long would it be this time? A week? A month? He'd given up hoping that the next one would bring him back. Now, all he had hoped was that it would stop. But that hope had also proven futile.

Oblivious to the accumulated cuts and gashes, he continued tearing though the room, a room as unfamiliar to him as any other he'd found himself in. Catapulting ornate chairs toward walls and rending the fabric of heavy curtains covering dark windows, he paused after toppling a fully-laden bookcase. Breathing heavily, he focused on the books strewn on the ground before him. He dropped to his knees, frantically opening every book within reach. Each hurried glance yielded the same results. The text of these books was in no language he recognized.

He heard muffled voices growing louder, but continued rifling through incomprehensible pages. As men burst through the door, speaking in loud voices with what must be questions about who he is and what he was doing there, he did not face them. He had ceased rummaging through the scattered books. In his hands, he held a simple brown tome. The strange voices of the men gathering around him faded as he focused on a single word in this book. The only word he recognized. The word "home."

[shunoshi]

Good hook, Wraith. :D

[That Darn Kat]

Wow, these are all quite impressive! Some of them are so intriguing, I wish you had kept writing so I could find out more. The lot of you make this writing business appear so easy (though I'm sure that these are challenging). =p

[samcity83]

so, don't laugh.. It has been a while since I have written anything. I have never participated in an exercise like this before either.

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to boil the full extent of his fury.

"You done?" she smirked.

"Do you really think this is over?" he muttered through clenched teeth, the sinews of his jaw stretched taught. Every nerve in his body pulsing with unconscious commands as he held his fists tightly to his side. DO NOT HIT HER. DO NOT[I] HIT HER.

Smugly she stood there, center stage to the physical fallout of his rage. She slipped on the white silk gloves and with measured twists worked the dial. Click. Click. Click. 37. Click. Click. 21. Click. Click. Click. 89 - [I]SHUCK!. She exhaled softly as she reached inside and carefully lifted the inlaid box lowering it into her waiting brief case.

"This. Is. Not. Over. It will never be over." He insisted.

"You are right." She agreed. His face contorted in horror and realization, his hands flew to his chest where the squeezing and pounding was beginning. "It's just over for you."





let me know what you think!

[sunwish]

http://i43.tinypic.com/j9625c.jpg

[bean]

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury.

"Are you quite done?" said Dr. Parks impatiently. "We've discussed how these displays of anger are inappropriate in a young man previously. You should not model behavior you see in bad movies William."

Bent over with hands on knees and panting for breath, William pleaded "But they are coming and none of you will believe me. I'd tell you that I'm not crazy again, but you think that's a sign that I am crazy."

Dr. Parks stared across the room at William with what he liked to call her "shrink face". He supposed that she was attempting to be carefully calm, but she was a bad actress or calm simply didn't belong on her extraordinary features; William could not decide which. The result was that she simply looked disinterested, a look William was not used to seeing. Even at only sixteen years of age, he possessed a perfect slim physique and charmingly handsome face that caused even older women (and men) to gaze lingeringly. Plus, by William's reckoning, Dr. Parks was about as young as doctors come, and she'd make more money opening boxes for Howie Mandel than shrinking heads. He assumed her lack of attraction was just part of the act, "I know you're angry Doc, you can drop the shrink face."

"What?" asked Dr. Parks, surprise temporarily washing across the cool sea of her features, "I am not angry William. I am disappointed. Why do you say that?"

"I just destroyed your office and you didn't call the goons to put me to sleep, either you are angry but you think it is therapeutic to hide it from me or you are medicated." This created no response in the doctor, so William went on, "Also, you click your pen when you're angry."

Dr. Parks blinked and seemed to notice her habit, stopping immediately. William mentally concluded the doctor must click her pen subconsciously. "Are you going to up my drugs?"

"Your powers of observation are very high William. This is often the case with people experiencing paranoid delusions." said Dr. Parks without looking up from her prescription pad to see William's response.

"That's fine with me Doc. You go on thinking I'm crazy." William turned toward the door to leave and looked back upon the disaster he'd made of the doctor's office, "Sorry about your office Doc. They are coming, and I wanted to be sure I was on the good shit when they got here. I know you think I'm full of shit and crazy, but they're real and they want me." He paused to shake the fear from his voice, before going on urgently, "When you hear them tonight, you just shut your office door and pretend the knob is broken. You can say I broke it with my tantrum. If they see you, they'll kill you."

He started out the door, but Dr. Parks heard him mutter, "Or worse."

-------Three days later

William awoke in darkness and gasped for air. He was certain that he was dying. . . but that couldn't be true. He had died last night when they bit him. His drugged mind had not known any of what was happening, but he would never, could never, forget that bite.

Frantically, feeling about himself, William discovered that the dark confined space contained another person. Hair was in his mouth and the other body was ice cold.

"What the fuck!" yelled William pushing at the cold cadaver to get it off him but having nowhere to move it except up and away. Dirt began to shower down into the the space as he forced the body away from him with all his strength and William heard the sound of wood creaking under pressure as he forced the cadaver away.

Then the corpse turned battering ram screamed.

William curled away from the body, balling himself up so that the corpse fell across his side and back, when the scream changed to a high-pitched blubbering, "What is happening? Oh my God, am I dead. Who are you? What is this?"

Collecting himself, William asked, "Doc?"

"William?"

"Yes."

"Are we?"

"So you believe me now?"

Dr. Parks paused before answering. She felt of her own skin and then placed her hand on William's face noting it's deathly chill. With her other hand she thrust upwards, punching a fist-sized hold in the roof of the coffin and causing more dirt to tumble in as she said, "I'm sorry I doubted you William."

"That's alright. Nobody believes in vampires."

Edit: Fuck your 150 words.

[bean]

The Jack - Funny piece, but I wanted an ending. I think you probably ran out of words, but screw rules. Give us an ending. How does the mousey stockist defeat Charlotte the whore-bitch?

Khrymsym - Point of view jokes are really common in extremely short fiction. It was done well, but it was like hearing a joke I've heard before told well. . . not unpleasant, but not hilarious. POV jokes can be good and new though. . . the best have always implied something scandalous, for instance, I read one that revealed at the end that the entire short was the masturbation fantasy of a 12 y/o. That surprised me and made the rest of the story (that was written over-the-top and naive) hilarious during a second read through.

Expugnare - At first I had some really rough criticism for you because you used all those words for expounding upon the old equestrian cadaver theme of sci-fi: man's hubris instead of writing an end for your story. Then I figured out that you were making a sophisticated joke about this being a tired theme by using the language to imply the end of your story. Well done.

shunoshi - Excellent. I want to read the rest of the story and learn more about the characters.

Shadowstorm - another POV joke. See feedback to Khrysym above.

Wraith - Excellent hook. Again, as with shunoshi I want to continue reading. It creates tons of questions for me and raises tension. His is a better short as it has a conclusion, but yours is a better first page for a novel.

What else was there to call a man who every afternoon stepped from the waxed slopes of his luxury sedan and every night guided a different perfume-scented arm belonging to a giggling set of legs and breasts up the dozen stairs to the Old Town Cityfront Hotel that held his penthouse, under the corner of which shivered Ermine and his pall Boxcar? Jack the building's doorman called Mr. Horton a philanderer, but Ermine called him a hustling bodaddy.
Awesome imagery and great use of period language. I enjoyed this short very much.

Constructive criticism: Use the preview post and edit your work before you submit it. You may have been short on time, but there is so much good stuff in your writing that gets garbled due to run-on sentences and/or not expounding on a thought in it's own paragraph.

[Doctor Setebos]

Edit: Fuck your 150 words.Your writing is excellent, but your reading comprehension is severely lacking.

The word count won't be a hard and fast goal, merely a suggestion. :p

[Shadowstorm]

Bean, I don't even remember writing what I wrote up there. It's silly at best and stupid at worst, haha.

[bean]

Your writing is excellent, but your reading comprehension is severely lacking.
I know/knew, and was just acknowledging that I absolutely went over the 150 words and thanks for the props. :)

[alienmastermind]

Okay...Bean, if you'd like some feedback, let me begin by saying your structure and style are good. The thematic quality of insanity and vampires are boards well trod by other writers, worse and better than you or I. It's a played and tired vehicle for stories, unfortunately.

Nothing was offensively bad in the set up, and the payoff was about as well as to be suspected, but I'd point out that people aren't stereotypes, and your doctor and 'William' are stereotypical of television/modern fiction characters. They're not...breathing...they're cardboard cutouts of things you've seen, but they're not (in my opinion only) people you've known.

Otherwise, a good effort with subject matter thant's a little passe.

And, not being an asshole means I read what I did and didn't perform as an editor would, and be a brutal bastard about the subject matter. :)

This is a good slice of something that should be bigger.

AM

[astranoir]

Super Necro... Sorry guys, but I've been looking for these sentence starters again for awhile because I'm trying to get myself to write more/again.

Here's what I came up with for this sentence starter:

He overturned tables, smashed furniture, bringing to a boil the full extent of his fury.
...
Dennis threw down his mouse in disgust. Creating a home for his avatar wasn't going very well.

Why wouldn't the walls line up properly? All he wanted to do was build a snug virtual cabin to retreat to when he was tired of gaming for awhile. There was no way he could relax when he could see simulated sunlight streaming in every place walls met floor or ceiling.

Perhaps he should just go with one of the templates. None were as unique as he wanted, but at least snippets of the outdoors wouldn't be streaming into his avatar's home. He considered the possibility of a chrome cube as his relaxation retreat. Interior touches would make it his own; perhaps he could even add a unique texture to the exterior.

No, that wouldn't do. Sighing, Dennis settled down, his avatar now sitting amongst the furniture debris, for another hour of trying to line up his southwest wall with the floor. Maybe he should have built the exterior before adding furniture to his floor plan.

(Word count: 188)

[Generation ABXY]

IT'S ALIVE...and, as well it should be. We really should see about starting these up again.