Which story beginning do you like the best? 2 examples.

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Hi

Here are two examples of a story beginning. Can you tell me which one you like more?

First one

“Angelina picks on you because she likes you,” Gaby’s father declared. “The more someone harasses you, the more he likes you.”

Gaby rolled her eyes. Father. Written on paper, the word was airy, dry, and hot like a desert wind blowing in her face. The word ‘mother’ was moist and bitter.

“Now that I’ve graduated, I don’t ever want to see Angelina again,” she said. “She imitates me.”

“It’s because you do that.” Her mother got up from the couch and started pacing the living room frantically, flapping her fingers in exaggerated movements, creating shadows like twisting snakes on the floor in the light of the electric poles that stood near the building. Gaby dug her fingernails into her palm but didn’t say anything. If she did, her mother would just ignore her and go on and on.

“Stop that,” her father demanded. “You’re disrupting my concentration.”

Gaby’s mother settled back on the couch and snapped, “It’s your fault you’re being picked on. Four years in that high school, and you never bothered to make friends with the other girls. And then you wonder why they’re picking on you. People are talking about you, Gabriella!” She was screaming the last words.

It was such an un-mammal behavior for parents to steer their cubs toward the predator instead of away from him. Skeletons of extinct animals sneered at Gaby from the glassed-in cabinets. Her father was into Darwinism. She said, “That doesn’t give them the right…”


All right, here's the second one.


The first day of school was hell.
Twelve year old Gaby had avoided the masses during first recess because predators always pick on abandoned cubs. She headed straight for the deserted backyard, where she crawled under a desert willow and snapped pictures of a black kitten slapping at a fallen pinecone covered by a pink flower with a white-tipped paw. A familiar voice behind her made her drop her cellphone.

"Gabriella, you mustn’t isolate yourself and participate in unusual and anti-social behavior such as these. What will people think?"

Gaby winced. She took a deep breath, crawled out from under the bush, and got up, waiting a few seconds before turning around. Outside the schoolyard, drives shouted curses at each other, and horns honked in a horrible symphony. Mrs. Proper, the grammar teacher who unfortunately happened to be Gaby's mother, was watching her through narrowed eyes, her lips set in a thin line.

"All your friends are in the front yard, conversing and socializing like normal teenagers, and you're here taking pictures of filthy creatures. Go join your friends, now!"

She raised her voice on the last words to be heard over the mournful song of a coyote somewhere in the front yard. It was drawn out and eerily human.

"What's that noise?" Gaby asked her mother.

"What noise?" Her mother stared into space.

"That wail." The hair on Gaby's arms rose in goosebumps. She knew it was a sign of fear or a reaction to the cold. But the Californian late summer heat was intense, and the air scorched her lungs, so she realized what she was feeling was fear. "What kind of creature is making that noise?" She asked her mother.

"It's a baby crying in one of the nearby buildings." Her mother's voice was faraway, and she kept staring at something in the distance. "Stop making up excuses to avoid complying with my requests. Go on, join your friends."