1. I will provide you with the first sentence of you intro and the title. Consider these as prompts, if you will.

2. You may alter this first sentence provided that you eliminate no more than 20 percent(ish) of the words and any substitutions must be for a word of similar meaning ( 'sprinted' may be changed for 'jogged' for example.). So you could change:

The house smelled like a cat's litter tray.

The cottage stunk like pig-sty.

The way to judge this is to identify if the general thrust of the sentence remains the same. We won't be too pedantic about it. I verymush doubt if there would be any complaints if you shifted this line to the second or perhaps thried sentence of you own intro.

3. You may insert other words into the sentence or add extra clauses, provided my original meaning is not lost or changed beyond recognition.

4. This competition is about a creating a hook, so ensure you do.

5. Post your entry using the usual format:

Title

Story

5. Voting commences on 2nd June--any time zone.

Title: Pearls of Red

First Line: The garden was silent, but Jasal wasn't fooled.

Discussions on this thread, entries only on the other...(theres always one!)

Sound = noise

No sound = silence

Well spotted.

I chose 'Pearls of Red' as I thought it was suitably ambiguous--could be blood, treasure, planets, anything, really.

Come the 9th, anyone who hasn't voted will have the any votes they recieved transferred down to the person below. So 5 points for a first place vote will bump down to whoever came second, and they will get the 5 points instead...third place will bump up to second and get 4 points.

Make sure you vote...critting is not required, although we all appreciate a comment or two on why our entry did or didn't get a vote.

Skadder, I gotta hand it to you, you make up some fun writing challenges. Any other ones you plan on creating, it's a sure bet I'll be in on them.

If people consent to it, I was going to suggest bringing the voting period forward to 2rd June--9th June. That way it still gives people a few more days to submit entries.

Since this is altering the original 'rules', I think we would need at least a majority of entrants to agree to it. So as it stands now, I would need seven of the twelve entrants to agree. If I only get six votes, then we will stick to the original dates.

Please indicate your agreement by posting a simple 'Yes' on this thread.

That is my vote for the date change, but I also have a question.

I'm for moving the date up.

VOTING DATES CHANGED; voting commences on the 2nd June until the 9th (any timezone).

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Might as well edit it back to above this post--no-one has voted yet!

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Is anyone else interested in polishing up their 13 lines?

I was just reading Character's and Viewpoints again by Card and I read a line near the beginning that talked about no two stories being the same. That it wouldn't matter if two people wrote about the same thing, the stories would reflect the writer.

It was interesting to see that proven so well with this exercise. Each story was very different, very distinct.

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Very edutaining.

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I was aiming for entercational...or is that something to do with the liver?

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I learned that I need to bring my A-game to compete here.

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Always bring your best to the table.