Writing Tip #7: Make sure your dialogue naturally flows. By this I mean, if your characters are talking about cheese, it wouldn't make much sense for them to suddenly talk about swimming. Try to transition conversations naturally. For example, if your characters are talking about cheese, they can start talking about charcuterie boards, and from there, they can talk about wine. You can add natural transitions because cheese is on charcuterie boards, and charcuterie boards are often presented during wine tastings, so by adding these details, you can flow the conversation naturally by having related topics lead into topics you want your characters to talk about.

Daily Vocab Word: Supramundane - (adjective) Beyond our world or natural laws. I.e., "They believed in supramundane powers."

Writing Challenge Improvement Area: Plot

Writing Challenge #7: Hook!

For this challenge, I want you to write a powerful opening OR closing line (of the first chapter, not the whole story) for these five plot ideas:

1) The protagonist (first person point-of-view) is an unreliable narrator, and they're going to spend the entire first chapter lying to the reader about what's to come.

Example closing line: "But they're going to believe me; after all, you did."

2) Demons rule the world, and after five years of living in an apocalypse, the protagonist spots an angel for the first time.

Example opening line: "Even God was desperate."

3) The main character wakes up in an alternate world (could be a sci-fi one, fantasy, a time travel fic, a contemporary story where they get teleported from NYC to a different country, etc.).

Example opening line: "I don't remember New York City looking like this."

4) A short, one-shot (one chapter) story where the main character is in prison wrongfully and has hopes of breaking out, but after a long attempt, they don't make it.

Example closing line: "Another tally got added to the board."

5) In a world where the protagonist can see when people are going to die, they discover their partner is going to die in twenty-four hours.

Example opening line: "He doesn't know it yet, but in twenty-four hours, he will be dead."

*All of the examples are my own creative work, so please do not use them here or elsewhere. In fact, my opening line for #2 is a book that will be published soon called Beyond Heaven's Grave.

You have to do all five to get credit for this challenge! Remember your hook can start as early as your first line. If you can get your readers wanting to see more after just one sentence, you're doing something right.

You can imagine the plot of the chapters/stories however you want, so you can mentally add more to the prompts to get your juices flowing.

Happy writing!

Mark here when you complete the challenge --->