First and last lines meme
Ah! I see people are starting to add last lines to that meme where you list the first lines of your most recent 21 fics. (Why 21, btw, does anyone know?) That is most excellent, as that's what I was planning to do anyway because I struggle more with conclusions than with openings-or, well, maybe that's not true, because committing text to a blank Word document can be terrifying, but at least I tend to spend more time crafting last lines. Or being prouder of them when they're right. Knowing when to get out of a story, and how, is hard. And it goes hand in hand with figuring out what the story's title is, since both involve articulating the point or the theme of the whole piece.
Which is why I found thingswithwings' ruminations on her first lines so interesting; for her, the opening lines are the thesis lines. The story you're about to get in a sentence. That is impressive. For me, they've been more or less intended to get people to keep reading until the good stuff comes. I perused my opening lines after reading twings' post and couldn't come up with a unifying theme. Some are statements of action, some are lines of dialogue, many include "when" or "as" or other clunkyish ways of combining an action with a mention of what else is going on, some are short, some are long. You can tell my first lines are not consistently good when they're only occasionally the lines I pick for the story's LJ cut text or AO3 summary section. But a few I really do like on their own.
Here are the most recent 21-which, by the way, comprises about a third of all the fics I've ever posted, ha. Favorites are *asterisked.
First Lines
Elena dreams about that night in the gym.
The night is dark and full of dreams
When Elena's vision clears from Klaus' vicious backhand, she finds that Klaus is gripping Stefan by the throat and forcing him to meet his gaze.
In This Together
Monsieur Laurent is a valet; he's accustomed to many forms of déshabillage, from nudity to the sheer flutter of underthings to the unwrapping of starched layer upon starched layer after a formal dinner.
After the Enchantment
After a day of first-contact greetings, trade talk, and a modest but delicious town barbecue, M9R-390 was inching its way up into John's Top Twenty Planets in Pegasus list.
Songs they have sung for a thousand years
*And this, thinks John, is why he should never make a math bet with Radek.
If You Build It (He Will Come)
The people of PXH-158
M3K-452
P5J-211
had asked Sheppard's team to stay for a festival.
I'll Always Remember / The Time the Aliens Made Us Do It
John's mom gives good hugs, and she gives them freely: when he and Dave get home from school, when it's time for bed, when John falls off his pony for the first time and sniffles despite his best efforts.
Forty Years and Eight Pounds (The Skin Hunger Variations)
Another day that ended in "y," another fundraising event.
Soft Swap (Sink Your Fangs Into It Remix)
"Holy shit, McKay," was the first thing out of John's mouth after he stepped into Rodney's quarters.
Snippet: temporarily-in-a-female-body!McKay invites Sheppard over to experiment
John is enjoying a nightcap in the ski lodge with Evel Knievel and Chaya when a fight breaks out behind him.
Five Times the Inception Team Tried to Extract Information from the Atlantis Crew
Elizabeth had known the evening couldn't finish as smoothly as it had been going so far.
Exposure
John shivered when he stepped past the bouncer and into the dark, pulsing heat of the club.
Untitled John/Teyla "vanilla" as kink (BDSM AU)
*His intelligence was accurate: They were holding Sheppard in the central lab on the inner moon.
Tables Turned
*Another boring Friday full of boring supplicants at Fangtasia.
Doppelganger
"Your Gratitude Festival sounds much like my people's celebration of the First Blossoming," Teyla said as she and Major Kira neared the top of the spiral staircase leading to the rooms Kira had called holosuites.
Somewhere Over the Wormhole
*Rodney McKay used to whack off to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Hero Gets the Girl
He meets her at a bar down the street from his new lab, and he is surprised that she accepts his offer of a drink and returns his attentions when he takes the stool beside her.
One Night in Princeton
Turns out I don't know enough about American Idol to do a proper SGAI fusion, but if I did, I know it would have Rodney as Simon, terror of the music business, hated and adored by the public, oft quoted in the press for his colorful verbal eviscerations that reduce hopeful contestants to tears; and when one pissed-off auditioner, who may or may not be Kavanagh but is definitely not headed for Hollywood, asks McKay what the [censored] he knows about music anyway, McKay says without missing a beat, "Oh, you mean other than being a classically trained concert pianist, the most respected judge of vocal talent in both the Canadian and American recording industries" (to which Zelenka snorts) "and having a brain so remarkable it makes Stockholm want to invent a Nobel Prize in Music to honor it?"
The SGA/American Idol fusion I'm not writing
*It said something about John's life that the weirdest thing to happen to him all week wasn't that he'd been turned into a girl, or that he'd been tossed in a cell by distrustful Pelari clergymen and forced to perform an act of contrition to secure his team's release because he'd thought it was a dumb idea to cancel a mission solely on account of exhibiting what Keller assured him was a temporary case of Ancient gadget-induced sex-swap.
Upside Down and Inside Out
It was all Cadman's fault.
A Week in the Life
"And of course Ronon doesn't have a problem with it, he could hold up this house by himself without so much as cracking under the strain, and besides, he's got nuts of steel--"
Drilled
Favorite first line(s) not included above
Would have to be the 161-word opening sentence of An Unanticipated Side Effect of Dosing Oneself with Wraith Enzyme to Deliver an Important Message. Man, it's going to be fun to try to podfic that poem one day.
See, and then last lines. I think there are some fic writers who do killer last lines. Like helenish. Read Blush (SGA) or Pants on Fire (Inception) and admire. Everything gets pulled together in that last paragraph and makes the whole story you've just read come alight in a new way. And half a dozen other people I can't remember right now, who probably include thingswithwings and Pru.
But the craft of killer last lines and a citation list of examples is a big topic for a night that is not tonight. For now, here are my most recent attempts. Again a bit of a mishmash-some click in the way I always hope I'll be able to figure out but only sometimes manage to; more are blah "they walked off into the sunset/fell asleep/lived happily ever after/etc." types or just generally feel like Concluding Sentences instead of more satisfying kickers or twists. There does seem to be a pattern in that the majority are short.
I wonder how well this part of the meme works if you don't have the context of the story that led up to each last line. Hm.
Last Lines
Determined not to admit that she wants to have it again.
The night is dark and full of dreams
Then Klaus orders Stefan to turn off his humanity, and her whole world tilts sideways.
In This Together
As she takes her first warming sip, she wonders if any of the others ever think back on that time too.
After the Enchantment
John closed his eyes and slept.
Songs they have sung for a thousand years
On the laptop, "milking03.avi" waits to play.
If You Build It (He Will Come)
*They'd seen that he liked it
I'll Always Remember / The Time the Aliens Made Us Do It
John breathes out, long and slow.
Forty Years and Eight Pounds (The Skin Hunger Variations)
Wilson grinned back, unconsciously tapping the edge of the envelope to the fresh mark on his neck.
Soft Swap (Sink Your Fangs Into It Remix)
*"You just lie back and think of Atlantis."
Five Times the Inception Team Tried to Extract Information from the Atlantis Crew
And she said, "Thank you."
Exposure
He tucked her card into his back pocket and wondered how long he'd last before he called her.
Untitled John/Teyla "vanilla" as kink (BDSM AU)
Now that they had this between them, he did so look forward to the next time they worked together.
Tables Turned
Who knew what might happen.
Doppelganger
However long it took Rodney to fix the problem, she believed she was going to enjoy her stay here.
Somewhere Over the Wormhole
(And while Jennifer may wonder why Rodney goes bright red when she pops in a Buffy DVD one night, she doesn't complain about his enthusiasm under the covers afterwards.)
Hero Gets the Girl
She exchanges thanks and compliments with him, and lets herself out.
One Night in Princeton
*And I imagine Teyla and Ronon standing on stage in the season finale, sweaty and glowing after the string of performances with their former competitors and bands like the Who and the Wraith, the four judges torn between them, the audience restless with anticipation, Sheppard biting his lip as he stands beside them with fingers tight around the microphone, and they take each other's hands and stand in the spotlight, waiting for the final results.
The SGA/American Idol fusion I'm not writing
For now, he hung in Rodney's arms, content.
Upside Down and Inside Out
Maybe he should thank Cadman after all.
A Week in the Life
They waited.
Drilled
Favorite last lines not included above
John sucks and moans and feels ready to burst with pleasure, and when it's too much McKay brings him off with just the right squeezing grip, staring down at John with his slanting lips parted and his eyes bright in the darkness.
In his room at night, alone
The which, if you with patient hearts attend,
What here shall miss, fans' toil shall strive to mend.
Rodneyo and Johniet: A Prologue
For once, he doesn't want to see the metaphor.
Coming Into Focus (The Director's Cut Remix)
Remus Lupin doesn't know much, but he does know Sirius Black, and that may be enough.
On Knowledge (All Ye Know on Earth, and All Ye Need to Know Remix)
Remus closed his mouth. He looked at Sirius, standing before him in all his flushed and disheveled glory; felt his own body's deep, singing, sleepy satisfaction; listened to the silence around them punctuated only by their breaths as they calmed; and smiled.
Third Time's the Charm
"Lie back and think of Atlantis" might be my favorite ever. Not sure whether the one from "I'll Always Remember / The Time the Aliens Made Us Do It" counts, since (a) the words are from another person's story and (b) synn was the one who told me to chop the text that originally came after it and conclude there. Gold star for her. The one from the SGA-American Idol fusion not-fic I like because it's got imagery and emotion, zooming out. The last line of "On Knowledge" worked well because it served as a bookend to the opening line and a reflection of the story it remixed.
Thoughts? On these, or yours, or others who do it well, or...?
Which is why I found thingswithwings' ruminations on her first lines so interesting; for her, the opening lines are the thesis lines. The story you're about to get in a sentence. That is impressive. For me, they've been more or less intended to get people to keep reading until the good stuff comes. I perused my opening lines after reading twings' post and couldn't come up with a unifying theme. Some are statements of action, some are lines of dialogue, many include "when" or "as" or other clunkyish ways of combining an action with a mention of what else is going on, some are short, some are long. You can tell my first lines are not consistently good when they're only occasionally the lines I pick for the story's LJ cut text or AO3 summary section. But a few I really do like on their own.
Here are the most recent 21-which, by the way, comprises about a third of all the fics I've ever posted, ha. Favorites are *asterisked.
First Lines
Elena dreams about that night in the gym.
The night is dark and full of dreams
When Elena's vision clears from Klaus' vicious backhand, she finds that Klaus is gripping Stefan by the throat and forcing him to meet his gaze.
In This Together
Monsieur Laurent is a valet; he's accustomed to many forms of déshabillage, from nudity to the sheer flutter of underthings to the unwrapping of starched layer upon starched layer after a formal dinner.
After the Enchantment
After a day of first-contact greetings, trade talk, and a modest but delicious town barbecue, M9R-390 was inching its way up into John's Top Twenty Planets in Pegasus list.
Songs they have sung for a thousand years
*And this, thinks John, is why he should never make a math bet with Radek.
If You Build It (He Will Come)
The people of PXH-158
M3K-452
P5J-211
had asked Sheppard's team to stay for a festival.
I'll Always Remember / The Time the Aliens Made Us Do It
John's mom gives good hugs, and she gives them freely: when he and Dave get home from school, when it's time for bed, when John falls off his pony for the first time and sniffles despite his best efforts.
Forty Years and Eight Pounds (The Skin Hunger Variations)
Another day that ended in "y," another fundraising event.
Soft Swap (Sink Your Fangs Into It Remix)
"Holy shit, McKay," was the first thing out of John's mouth after he stepped into Rodney's quarters.
Snippet: temporarily-in-a-female-body!McKay invites Sheppard over to experiment
John is enjoying a nightcap in the ski lodge with Evel Knievel and Chaya when a fight breaks out behind him.
Five Times the Inception Team Tried to Extract Information from the Atlantis Crew
Elizabeth had known the evening couldn't finish as smoothly as it had been going so far.
Exposure
John shivered when he stepped past the bouncer and into the dark, pulsing heat of the club.
Untitled John/Teyla "vanilla" as kink (BDSM AU)
*His intelligence was accurate: They were holding Sheppard in the central lab on the inner moon.
Tables Turned
*Another boring Friday full of boring supplicants at Fangtasia.
Doppelganger
"Your Gratitude Festival sounds much like my people's celebration of the First Blossoming," Teyla said as she and Major Kira neared the top of the spiral staircase leading to the rooms Kira had called holosuites.
Somewhere Over the Wormhole
*Rodney McKay used to whack off to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Hero Gets the Girl
He meets her at a bar down the street from his new lab, and he is surprised that she accepts his offer of a drink and returns his attentions when he takes the stool beside her.
One Night in Princeton
Turns out I don't know enough about American Idol to do a proper SGAI fusion, but if I did, I know it would have Rodney as Simon, terror of the music business, hated and adored by the public, oft quoted in the press for his colorful verbal eviscerations that reduce hopeful contestants to tears; and when one pissed-off auditioner, who may or may not be Kavanagh but is definitely not headed for Hollywood, asks McKay what the [censored] he knows about music anyway, McKay says without missing a beat, "Oh, you mean other than being a classically trained concert pianist, the most respected judge of vocal talent in both the Canadian and American recording industries" (to which Zelenka snorts) "and having a brain so remarkable it makes Stockholm want to invent a Nobel Prize in Music to honor it?"
The SGA/American Idol fusion I'm not writing
*It said something about John's life that the weirdest thing to happen to him all week wasn't that he'd been turned into a girl, or that he'd been tossed in a cell by distrustful Pelari clergymen and forced to perform an act of contrition to secure his team's release because he'd thought it was a dumb idea to cancel a mission solely on account of exhibiting what Keller assured him was a temporary case of Ancient gadget-induced sex-swap.
Upside Down and Inside Out
It was all Cadman's fault.
A Week in the Life
"And of course Ronon doesn't have a problem with it, he could hold up this house by himself without so much as cracking under the strain, and besides, he's got nuts of steel--"
Drilled
Favorite first line(s) not included above
Would have to be the 161-word opening sentence of An Unanticipated Side Effect of Dosing Oneself with Wraith Enzyme to Deliver an Important Message. Man, it's going to be fun to try to podfic that poem one day.
See, and then last lines. I think there are some fic writers who do killer last lines. Like helenish. Read Blush (SGA) or Pants on Fire (Inception) and admire. Everything gets pulled together in that last paragraph and makes the whole story you've just read come alight in a new way. And half a dozen other people I can't remember right now, who probably include thingswithwings and Pru.
But the craft of killer last lines and a citation list of examples is a big topic for a night that is not tonight. For now, here are my most recent attempts. Again a bit of a mishmash-some click in the way I always hope I'll be able to figure out but only sometimes manage to; more are blah "they walked off into the sunset/fell asleep/lived happily ever after/etc." types or just generally feel like Concluding Sentences instead of more satisfying kickers or twists. There does seem to be a pattern in that the majority are short.
I wonder how well this part of the meme works if you don't have the context of the story that led up to each last line. Hm.
Last Lines
Determined not to admit that she wants to have it again.
The night is dark and full of dreams
Then Klaus orders Stefan to turn off his humanity, and her whole world tilts sideways.
In This Together
As she takes her first warming sip, she wonders if any of the others ever think back on that time too.
After the Enchantment
John closed his eyes and slept.
Songs they have sung for a thousand years
On the laptop, "milking03.avi" waits to play.
If You Build It (He Will Come)
*They'd seen that he liked it
I'll Always Remember / The Time the Aliens Made Us Do It
John breathes out, long and slow.
Forty Years and Eight Pounds (The Skin Hunger Variations)
Wilson grinned back, unconsciously tapping the edge of the envelope to the fresh mark on his neck.
Soft Swap (Sink Your Fangs Into It Remix)
*"You just lie back and think of Atlantis."
Five Times the Inception Team Tried to Extract Information from the Atlantis Crew
And she said, "Thank you."
Exposure
He tucked her card into his back pocket and wondered how long he'd last before he called her.
Untitled John/Teyla "vanilla" as kink (BDSM AU)
Now that they had this between them, he did so look forward to the next time they worked together.
Tables Turned
Who knew what might happen.
Doppelganger
However long it took Rodney to fix the problem, she believed she was going to enjoy her stay here.
Somewhere Over the Wormhole
(And while Jennifer may wonder why Rodney goes bright red when she pops in a Buffy DVD one night, she doesn't complain about his enthusiasm under the covers afterwards.)
Hero Gets the Girl
She exchanges thanks and compliments with him, and lets herself out.
One Night in Princeton
*And I imagine Teyla and Ronon standing on stage in the season finale, sweaty and glowing after the string of performances with their former competitors and bands like the Who and the Wraith, the four judges torn between them, the audience restless with anticipation, Sheppard biting his lip as he stands beside them with fingers tight around the microphone, and they take each other's hands and stand in the spotlight, waiting for the final results.
The SGA/American Idol fusion I'm not writing
For now, he hung in Rodney's arms, content.
Upside Down and Inside Out
Maybe he should thank Cadman after all.
A Week in the Life
They waited.
Drilled
Favorite last lines not included above
John sucks and moans and feels ready to burst with pleasure, and when it's too much McKay brings him off with just the right squeezing grip, staring down at John with his slanting lips parted and his eyes bright in the darkness.
In his room at night, alone
The which, if you with patient hearts attend,
What here shall miss, fans' toil shall strive to mend.
Rodneyo and Johniet: A Prologue
For once, he doesn't want to see the metaphor.
Coming Into Focus (The Director's Cut Remix)
Remus Lupin doesn't know much, but he does know Sirius Black, and that may be enough.
On Knowledge (All Ye Know on Earth, and All Ye Need to Know Remix)
Remus closed his mouth. He looked at Sirius, standing before him in all his flushed and disheveled glory; felt his own body's deep, singing, sleepy satisfaction; listened to the silence around them punctuated only by their breaths as they calmed; and smiled.
Third Time's the Charm
"Lie back and think of Atlantis" might be my favorite ever. Not sure whether the one from "I'll Always Remember / The Time the Aliens Made Us Do It" counts, since (a) the words are from another person's story and (b) synn was the one who told me to chop the text that originally came after it and conclude there. Gold star for her. The one from the SGA-American Idol fusion not-fic I like because it's got imagery and emotion, zooming out. The last line of "On Knowledge" worked well because it served as a bookend to the opening line and a reflection of the story it remixed.
Thoughts? On these, or yours, or others who do it well, or...?