As a fiction writer, I find myself in possession of collections of sentences that I want to use one day. At times, I feel like a phrase hoarder. Some of the sentences I love so much that I don’t even think I can bear to use them. It is like the good china. Some of them are probably more like that raggedy old hand-me-down t-shirt that you love and can’t part with even though the most vigorous washings can’t quite get the funk out. Wait…you don’t have one of those? Today I decided to share some of these sentences, hoping someone will get something out of them. And (not so) secretly hoping that letting them out will help me find the right story for them.
“You going to leave her here?” he said in the same tone one uses to say ‘you gonna finish that” as he hungrily eyes a half-eaten sandwich on a neighboring plate.
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I want to feel like I’m in the middle of a Luther Vandross song; not a Snoop Dog song, not a Tori Amos song.
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He called my pandowdy a fake pie!
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The first time she heard the term one-eyed bandit, she had no idea they were talking about a slot machine.
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Earthy like some supposedly transcendental tea: green, stanky and magical.