Favorite excerpts from your novels.

[pmmg]

Ill post the rest if you like. I feel it should have found a home, but never did.

 

[Ned Marcus]

Ill post the rest if you like. I feel it should have found a home, but never did.

How many magazines (I'm assuming that's what you mean) did you submit the story to? I ask because it sometimes takes a lot to find a home for a story. I submitted one of my stories, Hobs n' Dogs, to 32 magazine before getting accepted, and that was over a 2.5 year period. Then, within a few months of publication, I had another magazine want to translate and publish it in Galician. I know other writers with similar experiences.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Opening line to Shadows of Man.

Ieru’s mother didn’t give birth to her in the stars, but the night sky, bleak and beautiful, was her home.

 

[pmmg]

How many magazines (I'm assuming that's what you mean) did you submit the story to? I ask because it sometimes takes a lot to find a home for a story. I submitted one of my stories, Hobs n' Dogs, to 32 magazine before getting accepted, and that was over a 2.5 year period. Then, within a few months of publication, I had another magazine want to translate and publish it in Galician. I know other writers with similar experiences.

So...most of my short stories I wrote in the late 1990's and early 2000's. At the time, I sent stuff out and collected rejection letters. Some got published. But stuff happened and it ended. Recently, events happened and a lot of my short stories were mostly destroyed. Some still linger. The ones I liked most, I was able to recover.

Anyway...I am back to creating, and really dont care to put a lot of energy into finding every story a home. Maybe when the books are done, I will.

For me, it was a part of my life. I am glad I have them, but its not what I want to focus on anymore. If that makes sense.

 

[Azul-din]

Well…there are loads. And can I remember them word for word? Probably not. I love the opening line of Moby Dick or the White Whale.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world

In Jane Eyre, with Charlotte Brontë’s achingly beautiful and bold prose, when Miss Temple is reassuring a young Jane, this excerpt broke me into a million little pieces,

The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.

in The Handmaid’s Tale, not an excerpt as such but the moment when the commander tells Offred that the mock latin she finds in her room actually means ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’.

And of course I am a romantic at heart and I can’t leave my beloved Mr Darcy out of this when he confesses his love to Elizabeth Bennet,

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

There are so many in Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami, but this one sums it up for me,

Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in fight, searching the skies for dreams.

Because for further context, the main character is stuck at the end of the world inside his own mind.

I liked best the quote fro Murakami. It's great to be among other readers.

 

[Azul-din]

Opening line to Shadows of Man.

Ieru’s mother didn’t give birth to her in the stars, but the night sky, bleak and beautiful, was her home.

Nice!

 

[Finchbearer]

I liked best the quote fro Murakami. It's great to be among other readers.

Haven’t met another fan on here yet until now!

 

[Finchbearer]

I liked best the quote fro Murakami. It's great to be among other readers.

Or unless you haven’t yet read any Murakami, I highly recommend. His work is what could be described as ‘magical realism’.

 

[Super Fantasy]

By the time the storm set in so had night, and Vivia led the two of them back.
"I was looking forward to showing the two of you the night sky." Vivia said.
"Although with this storm were going to need to enjoy the sound of rain." She further said as thunder rumbled high above the castle tops.
Rain water gushed downward, trickling down vines and the sides of castles.
The three of them noticed the areas below the bridges were dark while crossing them.
And the dripping and gushing of water seemed to create a ambience of a sort.

 

[Super Fantasy]

And they left another clue, known as "A bounty hunter who?" along with the notion that anyone curious about A bounty hunter who would need to use their imagination to think of.
And their fault, when leaving the clue "A bounty hunter who" was that of nanotechnology sand where things never went as planned.
Although, the Aeon tribe did leave another clue.
This clue was known as a Soniq vision palace, and floated high above the ground in the sky with a mechan alien soniq vison that did fly.
And the mechan alien soniq vison was sentient while she kept many genie lamps and tea pots that she tended to.

And soniq visions palace rarely ran out of energy, as she recharged the glixy super batteries of her palace with a energy source that A bounty hunter who once knew of long ago.
And the Aeon tribes fault here was that of the tea pot, not the genie rarely caught, let alone taught of the teaching "Teaching how to teach".

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Just wrote this and loving it...

A shimmering rainbow appeared in the Light the Edan projected into the room: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, a perfect arch hovering until sparkling beads wavered and danced into a display unimaginable and yet unimaginably real, real beyond the sense of sight, eliciting tinkling chimes as if water and light turned to crystal, and striking his nose with the smells of a thousand memories he couldn't name, and yet unreal in the uncountable variations of colors that dizzied his mind with wondrous possibilities, mesmerizing, tantalizing, and teasing until a shriek born from the Twelve Hells and the Bellows of the Forge shattered his trance, dropping him numb to his knees without a prayer.

 

[pmmg]

Just wrote this and loving it...

A shimmering rainbow appeared in the Light the Edan projected into the room: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, a perfect arch hovering until sparkling beads wavered and danced into a display unimaginable and yet unimaginably real, real beyond the sense of sight, eliciting tinkling chimes as if water and light turned to crystal, and striking his nose with the smells of a thousand memories he couldn't name, and yet unreal in the uncountable variations of colors that dizzied his mind with wondrous possibilities, mesmerizing, tantalizing, and teasing until a shriek born from the Twelve Hells and the Bellows of the Forge shattered his trance, dropping him numb to his knees without a prayer.

Look at all those comma's. That's like one of my sentences

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Look at all those comma's. That's like one of my sentences

Nothing wrong with long sentences. I'm notorious for them combined with an inability to shut up, and I also have a deep, committed relationship with the comma.

 

[pmmg]

Just sayin....I've hated every sentence I have written today. I wont be posting those up

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Even Hemingway wrote some whoppers. He has one awesome sentence describing a skiing descent down a mountain that is really long and without periods, it flows and swishes rather than hitting jerky periods. I really think the short sentence thing came from slush pile readers and lazy editors dealing with people who can't realize a well-written longer sentence, heh heh.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Just sayin....I've hated every sentence I have written today. I wont be posting those up

Just don't delete anything tonight. Tomorrow may bring a new perspective and suddenly the garbage will do.

 

[Azul-din]

From a yet to be published (whom am I kidding?)novel about two young werewolves, brother and sister, here meeting the spirit of the forest.

She was as tall as a tree and suddenly we didn’t feel like masters of the forest, but like little cubs and we both went down on our bellies while Dad just stood there off to one side. The look in his eyes was, I don’t know, sort of sad and proud all at the same time.

She had wide spreading horns and her eyes were deep green and set on the side of her head like a deer’s. Just as in the vision there were these little lights dancing around in and around her antlers and all the rest was shadow. I could feel her studying us, looking from one to the other, turning her head to see us with both eyes. It was scary in a way and yet I didn’t feel afraid. I felt that everything we had ever done, my brother and me, was being looked at and judged, and I don’t know how but I knew that there were parts that she liked and parts she didn’t, and some that made her sad and even some that amused her.

Then she stopped and stepped back a little and with something like a hand but not a human type of hand she made a sign that we could pass through.

Stef and I leaped to our feet and started to charge forward because suddenly all we wanted in the world was to know what was on the other side of that gateway.

I woke up last night and thought, what the hell, I'll post the next bit too:

We had just made it through when suddenly we both stopped, realizing that Dad wasn’t with us. Together we turned and looked back and he was still standing in the same place looking up at the dark figure by the arch. She raised the same arm but this time it wasn’t to beckon, because her head moved just slightly from side to side and we knew it meant ‘no’. We also knew from the way she was standing that she was regretful but very firm.





Stef called ‘Dad!’ in the sort of high pitched bark a wolf uses for protest, but Dad made a sign in silent speech that was ‘I love you both’ then he said, ‘Remember your promise. Now go!’ and that was a command so even though it hurt us we turned and ran.





I can’t tell all about what happened that night in the world behind the arch. Oh, not because it’s secret or anything like that, but I wouldn’t know how to explain it to you in words. Even now it seems like a dream, but a wolf dream. You remember how I told you that when wolves dream it’s like real? Like it was really happening but in another place?





One thing I remember, though. There was a hill in a big open clearing, and the moon was just overhead. There were at least a dozen wolves there, werewolves like us I mean, and on the top of the hill was one lone wolf with a white bib on his chest and somehow I knew this was Cyril in his wolf shape, like with that white scarf he wears all the time. It was just like Council Rock in the Jungle Book! Stef and I were sniffed over and welcomed into the pack and then we all started to sing. I don't suppose you've ever heard a whole pack sing together, like everyone is doing their own thing but somehow they blend together into one song. And then this shaft of moonlight came down only it was like a ramp or a stair and we all ran up it into the sky.





You might have seen stuff the astronauts brought back from wherever it was they went, but if you think the real moon is just a hunk of dead rock, you couldn't be more wrong.

 

[pmmg]

Its like an editing roller-coaster. All those words I hated a day or so ago are all good now But now I've found others to hate...


(I forgot, I was going to post a story up... I'll look at for it tonight.)

(And no one answered my question about who controls it in the ask the staff section. My guess is, I'd have to write someone to have it removed if I wished.)

 

[Malik]

One line, from Dragon's Trail, my first novel.

It's a portal fantasy, and at one point the MC has a chance to make a few things clear to his nemesis, including this:

"I didn't come here to sell my soul. I came here to buy it back."

 

[Malik]

If we're talking writing, writing, I've posted it on here before, but there's a passage in my WIP on subs that's definitely my favorite passage I've written, yet. Two paragraphs--one of them, a single line--and you have the MC's entire history and motivation. This lone paragraph allows me to fast-track the story from the prologue to the MC staring through a portal to a fantasy realm in 35 pages, accelerating the plot like it's been launched off the USS Eisenhower.