How To Write An Explosive Introduction That Will Make Readers Keep Reading

Fiction edition. Tips, tricks, and other sorcery

Lea O
5 min readJun 21, 2022
Photo by Karo K. on Unsplash

The lilacs bloomed in February that year. Their sweet scent floated through the thin, chilled air. The delicate blossoms were beautiful against the bleak, gray sky. All the old-timers called it a once-in-a-lifetime sight. A marvelous glory of God, worthy of celebration and praise.

Those bushes made my bones ache. A sick knowing something somewhere wasn’t as it should be. Sweet smelling, pastel blooms signaled danger, but I couldn’t say what or why.

In another life, I might have enjoyed those tiny flowers. I might have, but that wasn’t the life I was living.

The simple, sing-song pace of life I came here to build would be no more. My body knew it. My ancestors knew it. Every branch on every tree knew it, too as I watched in secret as their early spring buds withered to die. I held my tongue until my lungs burned with the warning bubbling up from my core.

Still, I held it some more. I could not risk being accused of conjure. I was no conjure woman, but they would not see it that way now in the 18th century. I would surely burn in this life, too from just one slip of my twice severed tongue.

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