Format request: Email to anne(dot)pinckard(at)gmail(dot)com with "First 13" in the subject line. (This will allow me to run a search through my email.)

Also, please include your Hatrack handle somewhere in the email.

I'll close the polls on rising the following Tuesday and post the results that evening. If not enough people have voted I'll extend the voting period.

Rules:
• Start anywhere in the story you like.
• Any details not specified in the plan can be made up as long as they do not SERIOUSLY alter the story.
• Include all italic and bold formatting code in the text so the moderator can just cut and paste the text when he/she posts them.
• Ensure it is only 13 lines. Read this thread for instructions making sure it's only 13 lines.
• Ensure is has a hook—goes without saying.
• When you have finished email it the moderator by WEDNESDAY. The moderator will then assign it a number and record the authors name next to it. The moderator will then post it with the number only, not the name, in a separate thread from the story outline thread as he/she receives them. PLEASE don’t look at what other people have done until after you have sent yours to the moderator.
• Edit your work before sending it—no corrections will be made after it has been emailed and email it only once. Put your HATRACK name at the top of the 13 lines, the moderator will remove it before he posts it, replacing it with a number.
• From Thursday onward voting/analysis can begin. **No voting for yourself**.The moderator will post the list of who did which intro on Saturday.
Then a new moderator volunteers (it’s not much work) and we start again.

Future moderators

1) InarticulateBabbler
2) Just in Prose
3) Grex42
4) Wolfe_Boy
5) Bent Tree
6) Doctor

MORE VOLUNTEERS??

quote:

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In 1921, British-born 22-year-old Harold Yeh receives a letter from his younger sister, Mary Wan-Li, in Hong-Kong, urging him to join her. There are so many opportunities, she writes. She claims she knows people at the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank who can secure him a job. But... there's something about the letter that sets him ill at ease. She writes about her friends, most of whom are gentlemen and wealthy, which makes Harold suspect she's involved in something distasteful. He writes back to her, gets no response. The more he thinks about it, the more worried he becomes, so he leaves his job as manager of a tea company, books passage, kisses his fiancee farewell, and sails to Hong Kong. He has enough money to last him a week. He arrives, with only the return address on the letter as clue to her whereabouts. He goes to that address and finds himself at the Hong Kong Club, a gentleman's club house. He enters and asks around for his sister, and is asked to leave. He tries again; this time he's kicked out.

The doorman says he's seen a well-dressed woman who looks like she could be Harold's sister enter with a wealthy British ex pat, a man named William Farthing. The doorman smirks and suggests his sister is a prostitute. Harry loses it and gives the guy a knuckle sandwich. Immediately, other workers at the club gang up on Harry, drag him to an alley, and beat him up. He's rescued by a missionary group who warn him to stay away from the club and give him a cross. They tell him a man named George found him and brought him to the mission for care. The next day George visits him, tells him vampires have taken over Hong Kong, and warns him a cross won't help. He says Mary has gotten involved with the vampires, has certainly been brainwashed by them, and maybe is becoming one herself. He wants Harry's help--he offers to kidnap Mary if Harry can convince Mary to reveal the vampire's day-time stronghold.

Harry doesn't believe a word George says. Nevertheless, in the interest of getting his sister back from Hong Kong's underworld, he agrees to go along.

George's men capture his sister, who's raving like a maniac. They take her into a basement downstairs and shackle her to a iron ring. He asks them to leave him alone with her--George agrees, but says he will be right outside the door. He's also won't unshackle her.

Harry pulls off her hood and sees she's not herself--she's pale, her eyes are wild, she hardly recognizes him. Is it opium? He crouches beside her. She lunges for him, gnashing her teeth at him. He sits with her all night until finally she falls asleep. When she wakes up she's coherent. She tells him about William, whom she confirms is a vampire. But she says George has gotten it all wrong. George doesn't understand the situation. It is because of William that Hong Kong is as successful as it is. The vampires are keeping the opium under control. William is trying to find a way for humans and vampires to coexist, and Hong Kong is that place. They've achieved a balance here. Enough people give their blood to sustain the vamps; in return, William and his crew ensure the city thrives. She doesn't know who where the hideout is. Even if she did, she wouldn't tell him--she loves William, William loves her, and would do anything for her.

Harry doesn't believe this for a second. He's seen the poverty, he's seen the prostitutes and the opium-addicted. George has told him vamps can put spells on people, and for the first time he believes it. But he doesn't trust George, either. George thinks Mary's a vampire and is ready to kill her. Harry convinces him to give him a chance to save her. He tells George he can deliver William--and if William is killed the spell would be reversed, right? Right, says George.

Harry leaves a note for William at the HK Club. Within the hour, he gets a note back inviting him to join William at the Golden Pavilion. Harry goes there and is surprised to meet a soft spoken, gentle man. William agrees to surrender himself if Harry can ensure Mary's safety. Mary is turning into a vampire, by her own will, and George will kill her. There's no doubt about it. And there's a few more things Harry should know about George...

Harry finds himself drawn to this man and touched by his seeming devotion to his sister. Could he have been wrong about William all along? Should he have trusted his sister's judgment and not interfered with her life? Or is he, too, being bewitched? He's confused, he no longer knows what to do. Surely this guy is evil, right? And what if his sister is now a vampire--should he kill her? Was he wrong to trust George?

Meanwhile, George and his crew are preparing to torch the Pavilion...

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[This message has been edited by annepin (edited April 24, 2008).]

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[This message has been edited by annepin (edited April 24, 2008).
Edited to add Wolfe_Boy and Bent Tree, and to clarify some plot points.

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[This message has been edited by annepin (edited April 29, 2008).]

I have no problem with the moderator playing, they don't win anyhow.