--Connie Vines, author
This month's topic is hooking your readers into your character's alternate reality.
I write in multiple genres.
Since our topic is hooking your reader, I will showcase the opening paragraph(s) of my "unfamiliar" worlds.
Gumbo Ya Ya is an anthology; I will share opening hooks from several stories.
Love Potion No.9
It is said the sense of smell is the most intimately linked of all our senses to memory, and I believe it to be true. One whiff of a familiar scent, even one we have not encountered in years, can transport us to a time and place long forgotten, even before we consciously recall the memory.
1-800-FORTUNE
The moon was full, huge in the sky, a brilliant iridescent orb that stared down at the earth. Enza allowed the energy to feather over her as she removed the silk cloth protecting her Tarot cards.
There were seventy-eight cards in the Tarot deck. Four suits of fourteen cards each. Swords, Cups, Wands, Pentacles, and twenty-two cards called the major arcade--the big mysteries.
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"You and Elvis have done a great job on his house, Meredith said as her older sister led the way downstairs toward the kitchen where the tour began. "Sorry I couldn't get over until now, but I've been sort of...well, busy." Slipping her Juicy Couture tortoise-shell framed sunglasses into a bright pink case, Meredith crammed them into her black Coach handbag. She hoped her sister didn't ask her to define busy. Becoming a zombie and dealing with the entire raised from the dead issue over the past six months was not a topic easily plunked into casual conversation.
1868
The Governor of New Mexico decreed that all Indian children over six be educated in the ways of the white man.
Indian Commissioner Thomas Morgan said, "It is cheaper to educate the Indians than to kill them."
1880, Apacheria, Season on Ripened Berries
Isolated bands of colored clay on the white lime-stone remains where the sagebrush is stripped from Mother Earth by sudden storms and surface waters. Desolate. Bleak. A land made of barren rocks and twisted paths that reach out into silence.
A world of hunger and hardship. This is my world, I am Tanayia. I was born thirteen winters ago. We call ourselves N'dee. The People. The white man calls us Apache.
For those unfamiliar with the sport of rodeo or living in a small Montana town, my Rodeo Romance, Book 1, would be considered a different world.
Charlene hadn't told Rachel that she'd fixed her up with a cowboy, much less Lynx Maddox, the "Wild Cat" of the rodeo circuit. Rachel sighed. She should have known. After all, Charlene only dated men who wore boots and Stetsons.
(I don't wish to spoil the scene at the Honky Tonk, so I'll end it here 😉)
Did I draw you into my stories?
Did you believe you were there, in the thick of things?
If you wish to continue the adventures, feel free to go shopping.
My ebooks are available at your favorite online stores, including Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and my publisher's website.
Please visit the writers participating in this month's Round Robin Blog Hop.
Happy Reading,
Connie
XOXO
Participants for September:
Dr. Bob Rich - https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/2023/09/16/nonhuman-is-not-inhuman/
Connie Vines - http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Skye Taylor - http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Dropping Zombie into casual conversation would grab my attention after everything leading up to it was so normal....
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