What If? Exercise I.1 - first sentences

I.1 – Write 10 beginning sentences that start in media res and create interest.

1. Twenty-eight days after the miscarriage, Donna told Thomas she wanted to get a fetus.
2. The first thing Bob lost was his left pinky toe.
3. All I remember about my father were the helicopter rides.
4. Reginald decided he was done with things in pairs: shoes, earrings, pants, scissors, people.
5. It’s been five years, and I still have not mourned my son.
6. I could taste it all – the tart plump cherries in sweet juice thick on my tongue, the slightly overbaked cheesecake surface giving a tiny bit of resistance to my teeth, the creamy tang of the cheese itself smearing on my hard palate, the crunchy brown sweet crust – through the window of the bakery.
7. The moment I saw this church, heard how the echoes flew around the empty space and bounced back and forth forever until they settled on the stone floor and in the rafters in exhaustion – I knew I wanted to sing here.
8. George stared as Helen cried – first, as if she’d lost her purse on the subway, then as if she’d lost her family in a fire, and finally as if she’d lost her mind.
9. Do not think me insane; for I assure you, I am quite as whole as you.
10. I’d hear my neighbor through the plasterboard wall over and over, all day and into the night: “Don’t you hurt me,” she’d say.

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