One Perfect Sentence – February Challenge is Open!

[AgentPete]

“Write one sentence that is the midpoint turn of a novel. Any genre.”​

- Thank you, @Rich. for suggesting this month’s One Perfect Sentence prompt. I’m very excited to see what everyone comes up with… it’s not the usual opening / closing sentence idea – it will stretch you in an interesting, creative way.

Pivot moments are like gold-dust to the writer. They’re the moment at which your reader sees thing in a whole new paradigm… not just a paradigm shift, more like a paradigm earthquake.

Yet, the challenge is considerable.

The sentence has to leave no doubt whatsoever in the mind of your reader that this is a kairotic or defining event. It mustn’t be overlooked or skipped. It must give the reader pause.

I think you’re going to enjoy it


The Rules are simple.

You MUST make your entry anonymous by ticking the “Posting as Anonymous?” box. Voting will open later this month.

 

[Anonymous]

(I'm cheating. It's a brief paragraph, not just a sentence. I hope that's okay. Disqualify it, if not. It follows successive painful events culminating in a rape.)


The next morning, she turned on the radio and heard Scott McKenzie singing about going to San Francisco and meeting gentle people with flowers in their hair. "You'll find a love-in there," the song said. She looked out the window at the rainy Minneapolis morning.
"I'm going," she said aloud, her chest swelling. "I'm going!"

 

[AgentPete]

Gotta be one sentence! Sorry...

 

[Anonymous]

Gotta be one sentence! Sorry...

Okay. No problem. So I'll consider something else. "I'm going" wouldn't cut it.

 

[Anonymous]

Today's cardiovascular analysis shows a mean heart rate of 62.4 bpm, though I must note the limited statistical validity given the sample size of only four human hearts still beating in the observable universe.

 

[Anonymous]

"You're going to be okay" were the last words he would ever hear.

 

[Anonymous]

"I am so done with your crazy, stupid project!" she yelled at Jack and Martha, throwing back over her shoulder as she opened the door, "Just see how you get on without the brain-power you need!"

 

[Anonymous]

"OK, we can just stay here and starve to death, slowly – or we can take our chances of making it through the pass and over the mountains before the snows start."

 

[Anonymous]

I have to go: the world is ending.

 

[Anonymous]

So, no fanfare of trumpets, nothing cataclysmic, certainly nothing that would rate even a couple of lines in some ramshackle local newspaper, and yet my life was changed irrevocably.

 

[Anonymous]

“My dear, I will crown you Viscountess of Oceania, and together we will rule from the heavenly heights of Castellet—where your celestial smile will be the poison all will be drawn to.”

 

[Anonymous]

"That night," said the freaky psychic doctor as he stole a glance at my wife's empty eyes, "during the storm, when you heard the front door bang, nothing came in, I'm sure, but someone... something"—that glance again—"something did leave."

 

[Anonymous]

"To my nephew Darren, I leave the garage, the rental properties and the Scunthorpe car sales business, plus the family house..." – Darren's wife Dorothy beamed – "while the little Provencal mas and the vineyard I leave to Bethany, on condition she looks after the cats, gets a big fierce dog, learns to drive the Landrover... and finally writes her book."

 

[Anonymous]

It's our last chance, gotta be worth a try, so – 'Yah big tumshie, LOOK BEHIND YOU!'

 

[Anonymous]

Sam climbed into a known trafficker’s car without a backward glance, protected me, and I swear to god I'm going to kill her myself when we reconnect - and we will.

 

[Anonymous]

'I'm very sorry to say, Ms. Polly, the cancer's returned, but...' the Oncologist shuffled the printed pages before taking a gulp of cold coffee, 'the cause of the vomiting is unrelated, I calculate that you are in fact 23-weeks pregnant.'

 

[Anonymous]

Santa Claus lifted the .45 caliber singe-action revolver he carried at his side, pointed at my face, and pulled the trigger.

 

[Anonymous]

'Do not argue – when I say "Go", run as hard and as far as you can, and don't stop for anything.'

 

[RedSquiggle]

"That night," said the freaky psychic doctor as he stole a glance at my wife's empty eyes, "during the storm, when you heard the front door bang, nothing came in, I'm sure, but someone... something"—that glance again—"something did leave."

I love it!

 

[Aethalope]

Uh-oh, is repurposing old material cheating? (And should we have a OPS discussion thread?)

 

[Anonymous]

"Amy saw, as if for the first time, her own self beneath that wild fringe of matted hair, in that awestruck stare--the self who was her, but wasn't, the one she'd had the witch doctor excise with prejudice like a malignant tumor."

 

[Anonymous]

"Yeah maybe you're right and I'm not a go-save-the-world kind of person, but fuck it, I'm going anyway."

 

[Anonymous]

While preparing the garden bed, Anthony's dreams turned from tomatoes to treasure when his shovel hit the lid of a metal box.

 

[AgentPete]

I cheated and repurposed the mid-point sentence for my unpublished novel, "Augmosis":

And in the mourning, in the silence where the Collective remembered those who had designed their shared reality, and those who had given their lives to protect it, Carli was certain she saw the Collective presence lower its head in sorrow.

It’s fine to self-plagiarize Writers do it all the time. But pls would you re-post the entry anonymously… I’ll delete your original post when you’ve done that.

Uh-oh, is repurposing old material cheating? (And should we have a OPS discussion thread?)

Nah, it’s not cheating… more like recycling
OPS discussion thread. Yes of course, but pls start it in Cafe Life. I don’t want too many tiny little sub-forums. CL is really the catch-all place for discussions like that.

 

[Anonymous]

The whirlwind that had been his existence that day suddenly vanished when a shift in the cloud revealed them both in moonlit nakedness… then he almost fainted when his eyes travelled down the lithe body to be confronted by the irrefutable truth... she was a he.

 

[Anonymous]

And in the mourning, in the silence where the Collective remembered those who had designed their shared reality, and those who had given their lives to protect it, Carli was certain she saw the Collective presence lower its head in sorrow.

 

[Anonymous]

It’s fine to self-plagiarize Writers do it all the time. But pls would you re-post the entry anonymously… I’ll delete your original post when you’ve done that.

It's like it never happenned

 

[Anonymous]

My reflected face snared me, not with the scar or the workings of my pleading mouth, but with what it mirrored: Cepphus, bent in his staged torment...had he been innocent too?

 

[Anonymous]

We were sitting there in the sunshine, drinking in our hard-won peace and tranquillity, when an engine revved, outside in the lane, and over the high, electric gates flew a bag... out of which rolled a head.

 

[Anonymous]

"That sword was forged to destroy the Ultimate Evil, so the fact you keep getting 'static shocks' each time you pick it up is a bit worrying."