There is a writing exercise that I love where you write just the first line for a potential story. The idea is to come up with the most intriguing sentence you can think of so that anyone who reads it is eager to keep reading.
Here are some samples:
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
This is one of my favorite first lines of a novel. It starts “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by C. S. Lewis. I instantly want to know what this boy did to deserve such a moniker.
“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”
This begins “The Crow Road” by Iain M. Banks, and it leaves me thinking, “What?! I have to know more.”
“It was a pleasure to burn.”
This is the first line of Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”. We all know being burned is no pleasure so I want to read on for answers…
And here are a few first lines I just came up with because it’s a fun exercise to stimulate the imagination.
“At least he was a polite dead man.”
“I never learned to fly because when it was finally my turn, we moved to this dumb planet where the gravity had us crawling for months.”
“Jamie wasn’t bothered by his leg falling off; in fact, he often took it off himself just to win a fight.”
The imagination is a fantastic gift God gave us. I can imagine a lot of wild and wondrous things.
And yet God says there is nothing I can imagine that He can’t do. In fact, He says He can do better than anything I can dream up. My wildest dreams are a dim, whimpering wish compared to the glorious and powerful plans He has in store.
How marvelous to know that God’s love is bigger, by far, than my imagination.
Dear God,
Thank you for giving your children creativity and curiosity and imagination. Thank you also that your love and power will always out-reach my wildest dreams. Remind me of this when I start to worry. Teach me to dream big when it comes to trusting you.
CamDevo 