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Try to surprise them with every sentence.  Here's how I opened a scene in Astra:
"The suns on the horizon hung pale and cool, so low in the sky that the giant rocks of the Ni-Chee desert seemed almost to reach them. The rocks were watchful, looking down upon the ships of men that slept now in the desert. They were wondrous ships. They looked like slices of fallen sky; like moveable cities; but the rocks had seen cities before. They knew this was not a country for cities. This was a country for sand. Sooner or later everything here turned to sand. Even the cities. Even the rocks. The rocks watched. They were waiting. They were learning how to die. Dawn warmed the great desert of Phyrnos."  "They found the bodies in the ruins of the church, two boys and a man. Their bellies had been carved out and slapped over the pulpit and grave slabs like strawberry pie. Nate crouched, memorizing the striation of blood and mustard colored fat. “Look at this,” he said; “Brian, come here, look at this.” Brian was on the phone with 911, pacing frantically outside the burned ribs of the dead church. “What the fuck, they said you have to get out of there. It’s a crime scene, you’re gonna get us in trouble.” “Look at this- they cut out their guts in the shape of an upside down cross.” Nate whistled through his teeth. “Happy fucking Easter...”  |
Pauline WestPauline West's first novel, EVENING’S LAND, is winner of the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Award and recipient of the Carol Marie Smith Memorial Scholarship for the NOEPE Center of Literary Arts. Categories
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