Writers: share your story starts that went nowhere?

If you’re like me, you have probably started dozens of pieces of fiction with an inspired opening scene or a gripping first paragraph only to have them drop dead.

Maybe your idea failed you and you couldn’t nudge it beyond the first page. Maybe you jotted down your beginning only to find when you came back later that you had absolutely no clue what you had planned to say next. Maybe when you returned you couldn’t even remember writing that much and wondered where it came from.

Those DOA story starters: what if they were a lightning bolt of animation to someone else’s imagination? If you know you’re not going to do anything with one of yours, want to share it right here and see if someone else can use it?

You’ll have to give up your claim to it and set it free, of course. If you’re never going to use it anyway, why not? And borrowing authors, just to be safe, you’d better change enough particulars to make it your own.