1. Write your own piece to follow your chosen first line (from five famous opening lines), and do the same to precede your chosen last line (from five famous closing lines - different books). You can make your two pieces connected or entirely unconnected.
Chapter One
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
He rubbed his compound eyes with his sticky front legs, opened his mandibles wide and yawned.
Glancing down at his segmented body, he tried to recall how much he’d had to drink last night – definitely no more than two pints. He noticed with some annoyance that his shiny, black abdomen had popped the button on his pyjama bottoms.
Hearing the self-important tones of Chris Moyles, he reached to switch off the bedside radio-alarm – his sister had probably switched it away from his preferred station, Radio 3 – but it was not on. The signal was being picked up by his newly-grown antennae.
‘Great!’ he thought. ‘I’m stuck with that fat, opinionated ignoramus until nine o’clock.’
Chapter Two
Being no great entomologist, Gregor removed his pyjama jacket to find out whether he was a winged insect designed to whirr on high o’er hill and dale, or some kind of beetle doomed to scuttle through the damp, dark recesses of the earth.
Yes, there they were – four magnificent, translucent wings. He scratched his thorax, relieved that his destiny was not a world of dung-rolling.
‘Breakfast’s up!’ shouted Gregor’s mum, flinging open the door without knocking – as usual. ‘Bacon, eggs and tomatoes.’
She screamed.
‘Where’s my son, you monster?’
Before Gregor could reply, she lunged forward with the cutlery. The fork rebounded off his tough exoskeleton and fell harmlessly to the floor. She moved forward again, her face contorted in a mixture of fear and rage.
The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.
Apologies to Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller.
No comments:
Post a Comment