Hooks; let's write 'em.

[monomaniac101]

Oh, cool! I hope this works okay...

At Forestville High School, there are two reigning forces that determine your social status. One is your personality. The other, which totally overrides your personality, is Missy Samuels. I’ve learned this already and I’ve only been going to Forestville High for three months.
Now, I consider myself a very likeable person. I might even go so far as to say that I’m good-looking. But not according to Missy Samuels. I took one wrong step on my second day of tenth grade, and now I’m on her bad side. I’ll take you back to those first two days, so you can see exactly how I, Mark Bennett, became a loser.

[HardScienceFan]

Laurent Ocwoba knew something was gravely wrong the minute his son silently sat down for supper and poked disinterestedly at some grains of rice
on his plate.
"Why not buy shares of Aryan Bloodline Karyotyping TODAY?",a holomercial
bleated into the solemn dinnertable silence.The president of the First Islamic bank of Lake Malawi City cursed violently under his breath.
Yesterday it was "Buy SMATAC Nukes,we use only radionucleides with a short
halflife,so why wait?Safeguard Your Corporate Interests The Best way,The SMATAC way!"
Suddenly his son bawled "Dad,they messed up Pepe!"

[Talysia]

The moon shone down on the sleeping city, casting the scene with its ethereal light. It was the perfect time for him to be about. No-one would see him, and those who did were probably too drunk to care, or would believe what they'd seen to be a vision from the bottle they were holding. Scarcely a shadow himself, he flitted from street to street, looking for his target.

[Ben.ak]

A fierce down poor did little to help settle the dust and debris; as is continued to fall it mixed with the dense soot about him, thickening the air to a point were he rasped for air through his quickened heart beat.

He stood, soaked in the center of the dark street, a single street light luminated the destruction he had caused. By accident of course; he had never meant to kill his best friend, level his house and the surrounding block. Still, small shards of metal and shingles struck the ground with loud pops like festive explosions on the fourth of July.

His balance was slipping and as he struggled to keep himself upright, he lifted a hand and felt the numb nub he had for a right arm. Blood pumped out of it like a damaged sink drain and the loss of blood was nauseating. As the blood collected on the ground next to him he began to lose his grip on reality and slowly like the air around him his vision thickened; until, after a final stretch for life; he fell, with his vision now gone he could not see the ground come up at him and rip his consciousness from him with a dull thud.

[HardScienceFan]

He had had one of these nightmares again.

He awoke,heart pounding,causing muffled explosions in his ears.
Cold sweat,deep primeval fear of falling asleep again and then having the same dream.

He got out of bed,swaying a little,then plodded downstairs to the kitchen thinking "Better stay awake for a little while now".He thought of opening up a can of beer,thought better of it,and said:"Music,please".The notes drifted in and out of his consciousness,and slowly the enormous tense and horrifying feeling the dream had generated drained out of him.He suddenly smiled,realizing he had said "please" to what was, to all intents and purposes,only a machine.
He started to breathe regularly, deeply,counting between inhalations and exhalations.His jackhammering heart slowly assumed some semblance to a regular beat,and it began to dawn on him that,as nightmares went,this one hadn't really been that bad.
In this one,only one of his kids had died,and his wife still lived.

[Talysia]

There was nothing worse, she thought, than being psychic. Being able to see the future was not the glamorous thing that everyone thought it to be: It was terrible. She knew what was going to happen, with an amazing degree of certainty - whether it was an accident or a catastrophe - and her ability usually showed her more bad than good. For some reason her skills never showed her what the lottery numbers were going to be.

It wasn't fair.

She felt this way until she started having the visions about him.

[HardScienceFan]

Peoples' lives speed past you like bullets.
You don't care to remember the name of the ruler of the country you are living in right now.Why would you:the country might be a memory, something for the history books, in a little while,say a century or three.
"Hey look",you say to yourself on one of your long walks through a city like any other city (what was it called anyway?Sheekahgow or somesuch nonsense?),"that building fell into ruins pretty quickly.They sure can't build for s**t in this century".(But then again:which century?You tend not to care overly).Man,lemme tell you:immortality is vastly overrated.

[HardScienceFan]

Any critical feedback yet?

[Talysia]

For your posts, HSF, or in general?

I don't know whether this was like the Character Creation Chain thread, started as a creativity exercise, so I'm not sure about whether they should be critiqued or not - that might be up to the person who started the thread. It could also be as a bit of fun. Sure, a lot of these are really good, and I'd definitely want to read more of some of them. Hopefully, if anyone got sufficient inspiration from writing one of these exercises, they can write it down and post it in the critiques section. I wouldn't mind seeing that.

[HardScienceFan]

Originally Posted by Talysia

For your posts, HSF, or in general?

I meant in general of course.Like U,I thought there were some good ones in there.
What I like about this forum is its outspokenness,the creativity of the people,and well...cosiness.Good vibes abound.This is all about what Internet could be,but unfortunately isn't.
AYTCH

[smebro]

The day I decided I wanted to die, was the same day I found out that my whole life had been a joke, that all life was actually a thing that could be laughed at, and the really funny thing was, it was the latter discovery that made me wish I could undo my death.
My name is Jerome, In my past life I was known as Jerome Aynor, but here, you can call me anything you want, since names don’t have much use where I am now, nothing from home has any use here at all. . .although I have plenty of things to keep me busy, very busy.
Perhaps I should start at the beginning, I haven’t always been this much of a cynic, or as sarcastic as you no doubt perceive me. I think you’ll agree by the time I’m finished, I deserve your pity, unfortunately I get very little for it.

[Phil Brown]

"Got any hooks, mister?" he asked, his eyes running down the groaning shelves in the ironmonger's store.
"Hooks, bud? What kinda hooks y'after? I got fishin' hooks, baler's hooks, coat hooks, hoist hooks, heavy duty graplin' hooks...I mean, what is it y'want it for, bud?"
"I need a hook so strong that no reader can wriggle off once I got her on in it, see?"
"No reader, did y'say, bud?"
"Sure, mister."
"Y'wan a reader hook?"
"That's it, man."
"Mmm. Well now, I ain't been asked for one of them in years. We used to sell a lot of 'em at one time but nobody wants 'em no more. Just use a few swear words and a naked girl on the cover these days, I reckon. Mmm, now wait a minute. Got a box of 'em someplace. Where did I put it?"

[daisybee]

"So you want a story right? Hell, doesn't everybody want a story these days?" He exhaled slow, watching the smoke ring drift away, before looking me dead in the eyes with a fervour that made me want to run.
"Sweetheart, if you wanna know why I'm in here and you ain't, then a story is not what you need. What you need is two ears, an open mind and a whole lotta faith cos this ain't gonna be no fairy tale, and you my darlin', have just put yourself in a whole mess o' trouble just by being here."

[jackokent]

Originally Posted by Phil Brown

"Got any hooks, mister?" he asked, his eyes running down the groaning shelves in the ironmonger's store.
"Hooks, bud? What kinda hooks y'after? I got fishin' hooks, baler's hooks, coat hooks, hoist hooks, heavy duty graplin' hooks...I mean, what is it y'want it for, bud?"
"I need a hook so strong that no reader can wriggle off once I got her on in it, see?"
"No reader, did y'say, bud?"
"Sure, mister."
"Y'wan a reader hook?"
"That's it, man."
"Mmm. Well now, I ain't been asked for one of them in years. We used to sell a lot of 'em at one time but nobody wants 'em no more. Just use a few swear words and a naked girl on the cover these days, I reckon. Mmm, now wait a minute. Got a box of 'em someplace. Where did I put it?"

Brilliant

[Talysia]

Agreed. That's definitely a brilliant hook!