I woke up in the middle of the night and scrawled this out on a sheet of paper. I beleive it would make an awesome opening paragraph to a story, but I'm not sure what. Tell me what you think and where you think it should lead. I was thinking about elaborating on the last sentence there, making that the ultimate destination of the story, but the details are very fuzzy. I think deja vu should be a key player in the story judging from the first line. ------------------ I have often felt like I am reliving my life. Like it has been written somewhere in a book and I am just reading it, remembering what Ive done. I have broken every childhood promise Ive made. When I was young I swore to myself that Id never smoke, drink, or do drugs. So far Ive done all of them. I also prophesized that Id become famous and die young. So far those havent come true, but I still believe in them.

I think that one paragaph is too little to provide feedback on, but it seems to me that there are two themes you have put into one paragraph. One is that feeling of reliving a life, which could either be the start of a science fiction/fantasy story, or it could be the tragic tale of the mundane repetition of real life (I've gone to work at the same time for the last 20 years...I have a lot of deja vu about it). The other is breaking every childhood promise you've made, and why you believe they will still come true when they never have. I'm not sure how the two are related. Perhaps that's what the rest of the story is about. But I would be clear, in your own mind, what the connection is.

Nifty plot twist would be to find the book and spend the rest of your life rewriting the final chapter :D

The tragedy would be if you spent so much time rewriting it that your forgot to live it.

interesting suggestions, both of you, I'm starting to form ideas now. I'll keep y'all informed later

Actually I was thinking of kind of a cause and effect thing. You read one possible ending if you do whatever leads up to it.. instead you do something else so the ending changes. (not that you sit around writing the bugger)

So the book writes itself?

yeah! Exactly. Well the words change anyway.

I get it. The question being, can you really change your destiny no matter how different your choices are....in other words, will the ending always be the same no matter how the words in the center change?

What if the final chapter does not 'change' (as in watching the words shift and turn into other words) but 'it becomes so it was different all along' if you get me... So the character could try to avoid the future as he read it in the chapter, succeeds in a way, but then finds that the final chapter (though different) hasn't actually changed. He has no recollection of it being different.