meme thingie
Which I got from lareinenoire and likeadeuce: post the first lines of your last 21 fics.
I got a bit confused about what I wrote when because a) I am a sloooooow writer so this list goes all the way back to Yuletide 2009, and b) I post stuff in quite a few different places (lj comms, AO3, my writing lj) at different times. So whatever.
1. Queen Anne has had better Christmases.
2. Harry Percy finds it highly suspect that Edward of Rutland, former Duke of Aumerle and suspiciously close friend of the former King Richard (for definitions of "friend" that involve royal favoritism and sodomy), continues to hang around at court long after a normal person would either have fled to France or some other place where disgraced royal favorites might want to hang out and plot treason, or alternately have been beheaded like all of the other pretty boys Richard generally preferred to keep around, for the aforesaid favoritism and sodomy.
3. Henry hasn't slept well since the rising.
4. Sansa dabbed carefully at her eyelid with a cotton ball before reapplying the glittery blue eyeliner for the third time.
5. One of the things Richard has already learned to appreciate in his short time at university is that nobody thus far has learned to find him annoying, and that explaining to people that he is gay generally makes up for some of the loss of goodwill he occasionally incurs by admitting he went to Eton, not that Oxford isn't lousy with Old Etonians anyway, but Richard is trying to avoid them.
6. Henry Bolingbroke has always thought his cousin Richard could be positively unbearable at times, but he has come to realize that until their grandfather had died, he had actually not known the meaning of the word.
7. When Archbishop Arundel opens Henry's plain white gown to anoint him he immediately rolls his eyes and would have thrown up his hands if it wouldn't have put him at risk of splattering himself with the holy oil which is, in fact, reasonably blessed even though the story being carefully put about that this particular vial was presented to Saint Thomas Becket by Our Lady herself was no more likely than the sight of a wyvern ramping about in Moorfields.
8. What had always bothered Thomas the most was the bees.
9. Emilia knows a thing or two about jealousy.
10. Edward leaves Richard's house when the sky is just beginning to fade from black to grey and the clouds are spitting forth occasional fitful bursts of snow.
11. The King's party (for it is, in fact, still the King's party) has not even left Flint Castle for London before Henry of Hereford, now styling himself Henry of Lancaster, begins trying to seduce Edward of Aumerle.
12. When Henry Bolingbroke awkwardly maneuvers his way into a casual relationship with Richard Bordeaux, it had not occurred to him that even meeting up occasionally for fucking is going to be an incredible bloody pain in all ways.
13. There were once three kings out hunting when they became separated from their retainers.
14. "You know how you can tell I love you?" Richard says, out of nowhere.
15. It had all been fairly simple, the first time.
16. It's nearly three AM by the time Edward and Richard decide that maybe they might possibly have had enough wine, or at least that getting up, going for another bottle, and attempting in their current state to operate a corkscrew is more effort than they feel themselves entirely capable of.
17. Twelfth Night had been relatively subdued for the Perrivale family in recent years: there had been nobody sufficiently out of mourning to host any gathering tastefully.
18. "Remind me again why we're doing this?" Anne says, for at least the fifth time in six hours.
19. What do you do to comfort someone who has lost everything?
20. It was just after Easter of 1897 when Edward York received an unexpected telegram from Harry Lancaster.
21. It was not until the gathering dusk made continuing the battle impossible that the fighting died down, but even before then, it was clear that the King's party would carry the day, for even now Harry Percy, the Hotspur of the north, lay in his blood among the men and horses and trampled pea plants scattered upon Shrewsbury field.
Obvious patterns:
- I am both absurdly monofannish and AU-crazy, because I know how to bring in the readers.
- My opening lines are either really short or go on for about a paragraph. It doesn't even depend on POV; a lot of these are the same characters thinking or speaking.
- I like to open with gestures.
- My characters drink a lot.
I got a bit confused about what I wrote when because a) I am a sloooooow writer so this list goes all the way back to Yuletide 2009, and b) I post stuff in quite a few different places (lj comms, AO3, my writing lj) at different times. So whatever.
1. Queen Anne has had better Christmases.
2. Harry Percy finds it highly suspect that Edward of Rutland, former Duke of Aumerle and suspiciously close friend of the former King Richard (for definitions of "friend" that involve royal favoritism and sodomy), continues to hang around at court long after a normal person would either have fled to France or some other place where disgraced royal favorites might want to hang out and plot treason, or alternately have been beheaded like all of the other pretty boys Richard generally preferred to keep around, for the aforesaid favoritism and sodomy.
3. Henry hasn't slept well since the rising.
4. Sansa dabbed carefully at her eyelid with a cotton ball before reapplying the glittery blue eyeliner for the third time.
5. One of the things Richard has already learned to appreciate in his short time at university is that nobody thus far has learned to find him annoying, and that explaining to people that he is gay generally makes up for some of the loss of goodwill he occasionally incurs by admitting he went to Eton, not that Oxford isn't lousy with Old Etonians anyway, but Richard is trying to avoid them.
6. Henry Bolingbroke has always thought his cousin Richard could be positively unbearable at times, but he has come to realize that until their grandfather had died, he had actually not known the meaning of the word.
7. When Archbishop Arundel opens Henry's plain white gown to anoint him he immediately rolls his eyes and would have thrown up his hands if it wouldn't have put him at risk of splattering himself with the holy oil which is, in fact, reasonably blessed even though the story being carefully put about that this particular vial was presented to Saint Thomas Becket by Our Lady herself was no more likely than the sight of a wyvern ramping about in Moorfields.
8. What had always bothered Thomas the most was the bees.
9. Emilia knows a thing or two about jealousy.
10. Edward leaves Richard's house when the sky is just beginning to fade from black to grey and the clouds are spitting forth occasional fitful bursts of snow.
11. The King's party (for it is, in fact, still the King's party) has not even left Flint Castle for London before Henry of Hereford, now styling himself Henry of Lancaster, begins trying to seduce Edward of Aumerle.
12. When Henry Bolingbroke awkwardly maneuvers his way into a casual relationship with Richard Bordeaux, it had not occurred to him that even meeting up occasionally for fucking is going to be an incredible bloody pain in all ways.
13. There were once three kings out hunting when they became separated from their retainers.
14. "You know how you can tell I love you?" Richard says, out of nowhere.
15. It had all been fairly simple, the first time.
16. It's nearly three AM by the time Edward and Richard decide that maybe they might possibly have had enough wine, or at least that getting up, going for another bottle, and attempting in their current state to operate a corkscrew is more effort than they feel themselves entirely capable of.
17. Twelfth Night had been relatively subdued for the Perrivale family in recent years: there had been nobody sufficiently out of mourning to host any gathering tastefully.
18. "Remind me again why we're doing this?" Anne says, for at least the fifth time in six hours.
19. What do you do to comfort someone who has lost everything?
20. It was just after Easter of 1897 when Edward York received an unexpected telegram from Harry Lancaster.
21. It was not until the gathering dusk made continuing the battle impossible that the fighting died down, but even before then, it was clear that the King's party would carry the day, for even now Harry Percy, the Hotspur of the north, lay in his blood among the men and horses and trampled pea plants scattered upon Shrewsbury field.
Obvious patterns:
- I am both absurdly monofannish and AU-crazy, because I know how to bring in the readers.
- My opening lines are either really short or go on for about a paragraph. It doesn't even depend on POV; a lot of these are the same characters thinking or speaking.
- I like to open with gestures.
- My characters drink a lot.