Templates
Openings that already have somewhere to go
The hardest sentence in a story is the first one. Take one of these instead — the editor opens with it loaded, and you write the second.
- EroticaDark fantasy
The Bargain
Someone offers exactly what you wanted, at a price they won't name yet.
A desperate protagonist strikes a bargain with a beautiful, untrustworthy power broker. Open on the terms being named aloud.
Set in The Long Favour — its lorebook comes with it.
Use this template - EroticaScience fiction
Two Hundred Days of Winter
A failing station, a crew of two, and nowhere to put any of it.
Two crew on an isolated station have spent months avoiding each other. Open at 0300 on the observation deck, when avoiding each other stops working.
Set in Kepler Station — its lorebook comes with it.
Use this template - NovelLiterary
The Name They Struck
She came back to a city that had already voted to forget her.
An exile returns under a false name to the institution that erased her. Begin at the gate, with the lie already told.
Set in The Struck Name — its lorebook comes with it.
Use this template - NovelContemporary
Thin Walls
Proximity is not the same thing as permission.
Two new flatmates with obvious chemistry agree to keep things platonic. Begin on the first night they both quietly fail.
Set in Flat Nine — its lorebook comes with it.
Use this template - RoleplayLow fantasy
Neutral Ground
The inn is neutral for exactly as long as it pays to be.
You arrive at a road inn carrying something you should not, and the innkeeper prices the risk out loud. Begin as she names her figure.
Set in The Drowned Hart — its lorebook comes with it.
Use this template - RoleplayGothic
The Guest Who Isn't
Desire and dread share the same candle.
A guest in a remote old house is drawn to a presence that should frighten them, and does not. Begin at midnight, on the stairs.
Set in Vespermere — its lorebook comes with it.
Use this template
Or start from nothing — writing is free , and the memory is on from your first line.