Opening Lines

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Jessie: I spotted this while out jogging with my son one Saturday morning. Add your own opening line to start this story!

Edith/Maddie: Ma – I specifically instructed Honeyboo to let that car slide straight into the quarry. What all’s gonna happen when ol’ Officer Buck finds a body in the front seat? Jolene – They won’t, Mama. I dug it a good deep woodland grave.

Sherry: I’d seen a lot of crime scenes in the ten years since I’d become a state trooper, but none of them hit me like this one did. I remember the day grandpa drove off in that car when I was twelve. He never came home. Maybe now I’d finally get some answers.

Barb: I gave up trying to steer or brake. The car went airborn, flying through the trees, branches clawing at the windows. Time slowed and stretched. My eyes stayed stubbornly open until the moment when the metal screamed and then…

Jessie: I looked and I looked but I just could not remember where I left my car.

Julie: Damn GPS.

Readers: Add your own opening line!

Published by Jessie Crockett

Jessie Crockett wears a lot of hats, both literally and literarily. As Jessie Crockett she is the Daphne Award winning author of Live Free or Die and the nationally bestselling Sugar Grove series. As Jessica Ellicott she has received starred reivews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal for her historical mystery Murder in an English Village. As Jessica Estevao she writes the Agatha Award nominated Change of Fortune Mysteries. She loves the beach, fountain pens, Mini Coopers and throwing parties. She lives in northern New England where she obsessively knits wool socks and enthusiastically speaks Portuguese with a shocking disregard for the rules of grammar.

16 Thoughts

  1. Somehow, Barkus slipped his collar and took off through the trees. I chased after him until I tripped over a root and fell headlong into a gulley, landing on top of a rusted out old car. I found myself staring into the hollow eyes of a skeleton.

  3. “Aliens. It had to be aliens.” I knew no one would buy that explanation, but how else could a car get here in the middle of nowhere. Sadly, I knew it was going to be my job to figure out what really happened.

    I felt like it was Monday crossed with Friday the 13th.

  4. Shaking my throbbing head, I tried to sit up and silence, all I could hear was some bird in the tree limbs above me…wait a minute, the last thing I remember is a voice saying “Turn left now!”

    (Couldn’t help myself, Julie…your “Damn GPS” got me to thinking….;) )

  5. Finally, a safe parking space. Now if only it weren’t for the freshly dug grave and an old car seat as a viewing platform.

  6. HAD to have been a time warp. Dang trees don’t grow that fast!

  7. It had been decades since the Arc reactivated Optimus Prime and the Transformers. Camouflage and strategy were the keys for maintaining our presence on earth. Little did I know at the time, that the Ford Fairlane I chose for a model had no mechanical means of stopping. So, here have I languished, nestled within the wooded sanctuary they call Mother Nature – a wounded warrior unable to join my fellows in their cause…. Until now. Code name: Crack Up.

  8. Okay, the boat sank just after midnight. And then the train derailed just before 4:00 A.M. Just as the dawn sun hit the rim of the Earth, the helicopter crashed a hundred yards in front of me. And you’re worried about the car?

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