first lines
Oh, look, a meme.
List the first lines of your last twenty stories. See if you find any patterns.
1. Some days, Martha kind of hated her job.
2. Nixon dreams of Aldbourne, because it was warm and safe and full of light, and because it was just a little bit strange.
3. Weevils again.
4. Upon reaching Oxford, they scatter immediately; Scripps wonders if they all secretly planned it that way, without a word spoken between them.
5. This is one possible future: after the Battle of Canary Wharf, her parents take her back to Pete's house.
6. Jayne and Kaylee'd stuck together at first, until they hit this glorified jien huo of a city, in the middle of desert that looked like a thousand anonymous border moons.
7. The problem with having a gun, Vince thinks, is that every now and then Stuart actually wants to shoot the bloody thing.
8. Pepper has Tony Stark's sleeping habits down to a science.
9. There might well be a case here, but this Dr. Tam is going about presenting it completely wrong.
10. It's a bit chilly, and looks like it might storm; but it's a beach, with a proper boardwalk and everything, and the slate-gray waves crash in an ever-changing rhythm against the sand.
11. "Big Block of Cheese Day," Will says flatly.
12. "Area 51?" Scully sighs.
13. The hybrid stirs restlessly, eyes wide and blank.
14. Lockwood wasn't the first funeral, after Hector; he was just the first of the Cutler's sixth form history boys.
15. She's not alone, she's never alone.
16. Foreman strides casually into Wilson's office, determinedly professional.
17. Laurie finds out when she reads it in the paper the next morning, of all the goddamned humiliating things.
18. "Oxford," Mary said.
19. This is how it all starts: at a Triad game, Starbuck's shit-eating grin across the table, a hand Helo wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, and at exactly the right (wrong) moment, someone stumbles through the hatch with a muffled curse, and he glances over to see a goddess in an ill-fitting uniform trip over her own boots and straighten with a glare for anyone who dares comment.
20. Monday's interview apologizes profusely for being only five minutes early instead of fifteen, and it only goes downhill from there.
So I tend to like three types of opening lines:
- Something which introduces the narrator's voice, which might be very succinct (1/3/15) or ramble on a bit (2/4/19), depending on the character; this will generally set the tone for the whole fic.
- Jumping right into the thick of things by starting with dialogue (11/12/18)
- Setting the scene, which, depending on the tone of the fic as a whole, may be either largely descriptive (6/10) or active (16/20)
Or, some combination of the three. Unless I'm starting with dialogue, setting the narrative voice/tone is going to be the most important consideration. I used to do the long rambling comic open lines (i.e. 19) a lot more often in HP fic, because that was Sirius's internal voice for me; less so in current fandoms.
My first lines tend to be set very, very early on in writing a fic -- even when I'm not writing the fic in any kind of chronological order -- and rarely change.
Here, have some WIP first lines:
- She rode out of the east, her back to the cresting sunrise. (Merlin, Morgana-centric)
- The TARDIS door opens. (Doctor Who/Torchwood, Rose-centric)
- "Name?" (Torchwood: CoE fix-it fic -- wow, is that the most descriptive first line ever, or what?)
Woot.
List the first lines of your last twenty stories. See if you find any patterns.
1. Some days, Martha kind of hated her job.
2. Nixon dreams of Aldbourne, because it was warm and safe and full of light, and because it was just a little bit strange.
3. Weevils again.
4. Upon reaching Oxford, they scatter immediately; Scripps wonders if they all secretly planned it that way, without a word spoken between them.
5. This is one possible future: after the Battle of Canary Wharf, her parents take her back to Pete's house.
6. Jayne and Kaylee'd stuck together at first, until they hit this glorified jien huo of a city, in the middle of desert that looked like a thousand anonymous border moons.
7. The problem with having a gun, Vince thinks, is that every now and then Stuart actually wants to shoot the bloody thing.
8. Pepper has Tony Stark's sleeping habits down to a science.
9. There might well be a case here, but this Dr. Tam is going about presenting it completely wrong.
10. It's a bit chilly, and looks like it might storm; but it's a beach, with a proper boardwalk and everything, and the slate-gray waves crash in an ever-changing rhythm against the sand.
11. "Big Block of Cheese Day," Will says flatly.
12. "Area 51?" Scully sighs.
13. The hybrid stirs restlessly, eyes wide and blank.
14. Lockwood wasn't the first funeral, after Hector; he was just the first of the Cutler's sixth form history boys.
15. She's not alone, she's never alone.
16. Foreman strides casually into Wilson's office, determinedly professional.
17. Laurie finds out when she reads it in the paper the next morning, of all the goddamned humiliating things.
18. "Oxford," Mary said.
19. This is how it all starts: at a Triad game, Starbuck's shit-eating grin across the table, a hand Helo wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, and at exactly the right (wrong) moment, someone stumbles through the hatch with a muffled curse, and he glances over to see a goddess in an ill-fitting uniform trip over her own boots and straighten with a glare for anyone who dares comment.
20. Monday's interview apologizes profusely for being only five minutes early instead of fifteen, and it only goes downhill from there.
So I tend to like three types of opening lines:
- Something which introduces the narrator's voice, which might be very succinct (1/3/15) or ramble on a bit (2/4/19), depending on the character; this will generally set the tone for the whole fic.
- Jumping right into the thick of things by starting with dialogue (11/12/18)
- Setting the scene, which, depending on the tone of the fic as a whole, may be either largely descriptive (6/10) or active (16/20)
Or, some combination of the three. Unless I'm starting with dialogue, setting the narrative voice/tone is going to be the most important consideration. I used to do the long rambling comic open lines (i.e. 19) a lot more often in HP fic, because that was Sirius's internal voice for me; less so in current fandoms.
My first lines tend to be set very, very early on in writing a fic -- even when I'm not writing the fic in any kind of chronological order -- and rarely change.
Here, have some WIP first lines:
- She rode out of the east, her back to the cresting sunrise. (Merlin, Morgana-centric)
- The TARDIS door opens. (Doctor Who/Torchwood, Rose-centric)
- "Name?" (Torchwood: CoE fix-it fic -- wow, is that the most descriptive first line ever, or what?)
Woot.