Sunday, October 23, 2011

The Odd Sentence Story Cupboard

If you're like me you've got files full of odd-ball sentences and paragraphs, ideas that popped into your head for a story but never made it very far. But...they were too intriguing to throw away. I thought I'd throw out a few of them here today. Maybe you'll get a bit of inspiration from one of them.

1. "This ain't yesterday." I heard this sentence on the TV yesterday and it started to tickle a bit, so I jotted it down.

2. "Give the dwarf his due." Yes, it was devil, but I read it wrong and hey, anyone can use devil, but dwarf?

3. "Old lady smell drifted off her body filling the car with noxious fumes. When did my wife become this vile, smelly piece of flesh?"

4. "We didn't plan on being notorious, it just sort of happened."

5. "There comes a time in every woman's life when she has to jump."

6. "Grams shot him one of those ice-pick-to-the-brain looks."

7. "I might be tempted to rob the cradle, but I won't rob the womb." And no, I have no idea where that came from - can't even begin to imagine where a story might lie in that sentence.

8. "A man is only as good as the control he has over the weapon in his pants."

9. "First kiss. First f**k. First murder. Life is full of firsts."

10. "Weren't none of my business, the going's on in that house. But it sure didn't stop them from dragging me into their feuding mess."

11. "I wasn't too sorry to see him go when he decided to take his lady friend up on her double wide life."

12. "She played June Cleaver on the weekends."

So what about you? Do you look through that file of odds and ends and wonder where your brain was going when you wrote it down?

4 comments:

Anita Page said...

It's very generous of you to share these gems, Sandra. I love #12. Also, this is the second time in two days I've seen the expression "double wide," the first time in Denise Mina's new book. Never heard it before, but, yeah, I figured out the meaning.

sandra seamans said...

It's not used so much now, Anita. They've upgraded the double wide to a pre-fab, makes it more acceptable :)

pattinase (abbott) said...

I am wondering what the last one meant. Interesting. Did she, on the weekends, play June or did she play June on the weekends.

sandra seamans said...

Either way, Patti. That was just how it was written in my file, so I'm gusssing she pretended to be June on the weekends for whatever man was around.