first line meme mostly
I stole this from likeadeuce because even transferring my neediness and abandonment fears/issues onto post-beach Charles isn't helping on the fiction writing front, so maybe looking at old stuff will.
The last twenty-one first lines I wrote in fanfic (note: I'm doing the last twenty-one full works I have posted on AO3. It doesn't include ficlet collections or "first line fics" where someone else wrote the first line for me.) (Also, I ordered mine from oldest to newest to see ~*development*~ or whatever.):
21. Camp, Erik thinks, is just another form of institutional torture.
20. When Charles' alarm goes off, Erik's arms are still curled around him.
19. Erik had hoped he could finish his report uninterrupted, but halfway through his analysis of the major flaws in their design, the pile of blankets on the couch twitches.
18. Charles drops his kids off at campfire and then tells Betsy he has something to take care of.
17. Erik is sitting on his trunk, waiting for a taxi.
16. "I have a story," Moira says against the distant rolling of thunder.
15. The crowd at the house is smaller than usual when Charles finally finishes in the lab and makes his way off-campus.
14. Charles hears Erik's footsteps, the sound of him sinking into the wet sand as he gets closer.
13. For all that Erik is relentlessly modern--his office devoid of clutter, everything stored on hard drives, his computers always the newest and best, not out of a desire to to have the hippest gadgets but because they're better and faster and Erik likes to work as efficiently as possible--he's strangely old fashioned about the oddest things.
12. "Don't be nervous," Hank says. "He's just another political opponent."
11. It's a nice little house on the Cape, as these things go.
10. "Shaw's an anti-Semitic asshole."
9. Lehnsherr never talks about himself, which is weird.
8. The day that Lorna first manifests, she walks around with a metal spatula stuck to her back all day.
7. Bryony Shelfley absolutely, positively is 100% focused on her upcoming vacation.
6. If Erik is honest with himself, Charles is the reason that he's here.
5. The drugs make him hollow inside.
4. This was not the way Charles wanted to spend his sixteenth birthday.
3. Heidi Klum takes the stage--the runway, Erik supposes--with a cool, confident finesse that reminds him, distantly, of Emma Frost.
2. After Cuba, Erik makes the call, but Charles makes the first move.
1. "I don't know," Erik says after the second beer, "why I'm even here with you."
To add likeadeuce's twist, if you want to ask me about any of these, I'll talk about how I came up with it/ why I wrote it that way. if I remember!
Looking at all of these I feel like....I'm not every good at writing first lines. Also, I tend to jump right into a situation. Most of the first lines are mid-scene dialogue or dive right to the point of the situation. And I almost always mention the main character in the first line.
If anyone else has thoughts, I'm open to them.
***
Meme aside...idk, I'm a mess. And I'm feeling very needy and I'm hyperaware of it, so I'm just internalizing, which is just reinforcing the dumb depression voice that is assuring me that everyone I know is just waiting for someone less crazy/dumb/needy to come along and be their friend.
Blah blah blah, depression. I'm really tired.
The last twenty-one first lines I wrote in fanfic (note: I'm doing the last twenty-one full works I have posted on AO3. It doesn't include ficlet collections or "first line fics" where someone else wrote the first line for me.) (Also, I ordered mine from oldest to newest to see ~*development*~ or whatever.):
21. Camp, Erik thinks, is just another form of institutional torture.
20. When Charles' alarm goes off, Erik's arms are still curled around him.
19. Erik had hoped he could finish his report uninterrupted, but halfway through his analysis of the major flaws in their design, the pile of blankets on the couch twitches.
18. Charles drops his kids off at campfire and then tells Betsy he has something to take care of.
17. Erik is sitting on his trunk, waiting for a taxi.
16. "I have a story," Moira says against the distant rolling of thunder.
15. The crowd at the house is smaller than usual when Charles finally finishes in the lab and makes his way off-campus.
14. Charles hears Erik's footsteps, the sound of him sinking into the wet sand as he gets closer.
13. For all that Erik is relentlessly modern--his office devoid of clutter, everything stored on hard drives, his computers always the newest and best, not out of a desire to to have the hippest gadgets but because they're better and faster and Erik likes to work as efficiently as possible--he's strangely old fashioned about the oddest things.
12. "Don't be nervous," Hank says. "He's just another political opponent."
11. It's a nice little house on the Cape, as these things go.
10. "Shaw's an anti-Semitic asshole."
9. Lehnsherr never talks about himself, which is weird.
8. The day that Lorna first manifests, she walks around with a metal spatula stuck to her back all day.
7. Bryony Shelfley absolutely, positively is 100% focused on her upcoming vacation.
6. If Erik is honest with himself, Charles is the reason that he's here.
5. The drugs make him hollow inside.
4. This was not the way Charles wanted to spend his sixteenth birthday.
3. Heidi Klum takes the stage--the runway, Erik supposes--with a cool, confident finesse that reminds him, distantly, of Emma Frost.
2. After Cuba, Erik makes the call, but Charles makes the first move.
1. "I don't know," Erik says after the second beer, "why I'm even here with you."
To add likeadeuce's twist, if you want to ask me about any of these, I'll talk about how I came up with it/ why I wrote it that way. if I remember!
Looking at all of these I feel like....I'm not every good at writing first lines. Also, I tend to jump right into a situation. Most of the first lines are mid-scene dialogue or dive right to the point of the situation. And I almost always mention the main character in the first line.
If anyone else has thoughts, I'm open to them.
***
Meme aside...idk, I'm a mess. And I'm feeling very needy and I'm hyperaware of it, so I'm just internalizing, which is just reinforcing the dumb depression voice that is assuring me that everyone I know is just waiting for someone less crazy/dumb/needy to come along and be their friend.
Blah blah blah, depression. I'm really tired.