The story that I will be mimicking is Kevin Brockmeier's “A Fable with Slips of White Paper Spilling from the Pockets.” I chose this story because I thought it had the most interesting beginning. As a reader, reading the part where it talks about how a man happened to buy God's overcoat, made me very interested in the story and want to keep reading it.
One day, a man happened to buy a coat owned by God. At first, he thought it was just like any other coat, but he soon realized that wasn't the case. The first time he realized it wasn't just like any ordinary coat, was when he found a wallet on the ground outside of his office building. At first, he wasn't sure what to do with the wallet, but knew what he should do. After he picked up the wallet, he heard a voice inside his head say to him, “you know what you should do, return the wallet to its owner.” The man was taken aback by those words but thought it was just his imagination. A few hours later, sitting at home watching television was a program about retirement homes for aging family members. He hadn't talked to his mom in awhile and out of the blue, he heard that same voice inside his head again, “you know what you should do, call your mom.”
1. The man was restless. He couldn't sleep or think properly because he never knew when that voice inside his head would speak.
2. “You know what you should do, go to the restaurant, get the girl back.”
3. The rain was pouring down, it was midnight, and he just wanted to go home. He was done.
4. He said quietly to himself in hopes that he would hear, “stop talking to me, you aren't helping, go away and never come back.”
5. “I am here. And I will not go away. I am helping you everyday, whether you see it or not.”
6. The sun was shining bright out that morning. He grabbed a cup of coffee to go and skipped down the street to his office. For once, he was happy.
7. “Thank you for all that you have done to help me.”
8. He thought to himself that life was hard and that sometimes people come into your life for a reason. You may not know that reason yet, but you will eventually find out.
9. “You know, you've been acting very weird lately. Is something going on? You need to start filling me in. I never know what's going on with you these days?”
10. The birds were chirping, the dogs were barking, the horns were honking, everybody was moving on with their life, the man felt the need to as well.
My favorite first sentence from this list is “the rain was pouring down, it was midnight, and he just wanted to go home. He was done.” This sentence would be started in the future and I would flashback to the beginning and talk about the events that lead him to this part in his life. I like this one the most because I feel like it would caputure the reader's attention and make them want to find out what he is done about which will make them continue to read the story.