Everyone doing it, so I thought I might as well: Post the first sentences from your last 20 stories. Do you see any patterns?
I took it to mean more than one sentence if that was necessary to give some context. And I'm appalled that I haven't written anything for almost two months (except for the story I wrote this week for a fic party on Monday, which isn't included).
- Servalan had always counted on her looks and her power, but now she had neither.
- It was a quiet evening on the Liberator flight deck. Blake stood commandingly, legs apart, on the bridge (why didn’t anyone call it a bridge?) and lifted his chin to let the soft breeze from the air vents ruffle his curls.
- I am her and not her.
- "Don't much like the look of that," said Vila.
- Vila ducked as the trooper fired, then his eyes widened at the monstrosity coming over the ridge towards them. "Um, you might want to look behind you."
- "No!" Hiro stared at the next panel in shock. "That's not supposed to happen!"
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard relaxed in his chair as the starfield stabilised on the screen.
- Vila used his handkerchief to clear a circle on the shed's dirty window and squashed his nose up against the glass. "It looks all right," he said, "but it's full of boat."
- "Will you be all right for a minute?" Cally asked. "I'll be back."
- "I'm not going." Vila folded his arms and glowered at them. "Nothing you can say would get me down there."
- I saw this vid show about karma a few months ago.
- Vila cut his toast into four fingers, then dipped one in his soft-boiled egg. "Troopers, my mum called them."
- Tarrant looked at the grey knobbly thing optimistically described by the canteen staff as a dumpling, squatting in a pool of greasy stew. He sighed and put his head in his hands.
- "Now open the main locks."
- Once upon a time there was a rebel leader called Blake who became unaccountably annoyed with two of his followers when one of them shot him--not once, but three times, because in these stories things tend to happen three times--and the other just stood by and let him.
- "I don't know why the girls wouldn't come with us," Vila said, looking around the market. "What'd they mean anyway about it being a minefield and not wanting to be with anyone magnetic?"
- "I swear I didn't put those up!" Sarit said quickly.
- "That's not fair! I was on weapons!"
- Avon stretched his legs out and settled deeper into his brown leather chair as he swirled his port before taking an appreciative sip. He liked the Belhangria Club.
- Til Morgen left the freight agent's office, pleased. That had been a very lucrative run and he could afford to stay here for a few weeks and play tourist.
At a rough count, half contain Vila, only two are first person, one is present tense, two aren't B7 characters (but the stories are crossovers), and just over half contain speech.