first lines meme
Aug. 30th, 2008 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrot(because all the cool kids are doing it)
Post the first line from your 25 most recent fanfics and try to find a pattern.
All SGA:
1) "Sun's up," John said, yawning, as he poked Rodney's shoulder.
2) Guilt is nothing new to Ronon.
3) "—What? Where? What the hell—why is it so—wait. Rock? What?
4) The thing is, noses aren't anything special; to call a nose unnoticeable is about the best compliment you can expect.
5) There were four holding cells, John guessed they could be called, built in a row, divided by the Pegasus equivalent of chain link fence.
6) The marketplace on M4C-K31 was a hub for several allied worlds, and had been so for millennia, a carefully guarded secret.
7) Rodney's world has always been bigger than anyone else's.
8) Once upon a time there was a black oni, who after wandering far and wide picked a nice lonely mountaintop to settle upon, where he would have only the quiet company of the wind and rocks and trees and crows.
9) When he wakes up, John is there.
10) "—And another thing, Major, I don't know if you've had the opportunity to examine my medical files, but I have a few health conditions that would make regular off-world travel inadvisable.
11) The Assemblage was, by the Athosian calendar, but three times a year, and Teyla always spent the tenday before in eager anticipation, practicing her fighting and her writing and counting over the various coins and jewelry pieces she might trade.
12) The Sedes Facultatium was solid black wrought iron, a looming artist's interpretation of a giant vulture skeleton.
13) "So this day," Teyla asked from the seat behind John, "is called Thanksgiving?"
14) "I've brought food for you, Journeyman."
15) "Sheppard is not dead."
16) Rodney's never actually been very good at chess.
17) "--I just wanted to say--uh, sorry," John interrupted himself, fishing out the box he had inadvertently sat on.
18) Upon beaming down to Atlantis, they were welcomed back by a two solid hours of debriefing, followed by Lorne presenting John with three weeks' worth of paperwork conscientiously put aside for him.
19) At the wake, he's by the paddock, off apart from everyone like always, and she could pretend she didn't see him, but Nancy's never run from anything.
20) This, John thought, was why Teyla was so integral to the team.
21) They stepped through the Stargate into a bright summer morning.
22) "You could've made her male, you know," Sheppard says.
23) The IOA requested Dr. McKay, but it didn't take much for John to convince Colonel Carter to send him to give the intermediate report instead.
24) The heat off the Hatching Grounds was so oppressive that Rodney could feel it sitting on the hewn stairs several levels up.
25) People always made fun of Rodney's hypochondria, and still do: doctors impatiently glossing over inconsistent test results, lab techs leaving lemons on his keyboard.
Patterns. Umm. They're all SGA? (I hadn't realized that I hadn't posted any non-SGA fic in the last year...obsessed, much?)
...d00ds, I write the most boring first lines. Some of these are hopelessly random. I open with dialogue when I feel like it. I start with "the" a lot. I usually use first names (especially for the POV char), and the POV char is usually named/established in the first line. Er, except when they're not.
Several of these have the main plot/theme stated outright in the opening, with the rest of the story simply expanding on it...didn't realize I did that. They're also shorter than I usually think of my sentences as being, on average...I don't betray my tragic semicolon addiction in the first line. I think my favorite is #4 for silly straightforward simplicity. Or else #8, because I secretly believe all great stories begin with "once upon a time."
Post the first line from your 25 most recent fanfics and try to find a pattern.
All SGA:
1) "Sun's up," John said, yawning, as he poked Rodney's shoulder.
2) Guilt is nothing new to Ronon.
3) "—What? Where? What the hell—why is it so—wait. Rock? What?
4) The thing is, noses aren't anything special; to call a nose unnoticeable is about the best compliment you can expect.
5) There were four holding cells, John guessed they could be called, built in a row, divided by the Pegasus equivalent of chain link fence.
6) The marketplace on M4C-K31 was a hub for several allied worlds, and had been so for millennia, a carefully guarded secret.
7) Rodney's world has always been bigger than anyone else's.
8) Once upon a time there was a black oni, who after wandering far and wide picked a nice lonely mountaintop to settle upon, where he would have only the quiet company of the wind and rocks and trees and crows.
9) When he wakes up, John is there.
10) "—And another thing, Major, I don't know if you've had the opportunity to examine my medical files, but I have a few health conditions that would make regular off-world travel inadvisable.
11) The Assemblage was, by the Athosian calendar, but three times a year, and Teyla always spent the tenday before in eager anticipation, practicing her fighting and her writing and counting over the various coins and jewelry pieces she might trade.
12) The Sedes Facultatium was solid black wrought iron, a looming artist's interpretation of a giant vulture skeleton.
13) "So this day," Teyla asked from the seat behind John, "is called Thanksgiving?"
14) "I've brought food for you, Journeyman."
15) "Sheppard is not dead."
16) Rodney's never actually been very good at chess.
17) "--I just wanted to say--uh, sorry," John interrupted himself, fishing out the box he had inadvertently sat on.
18) Upon beaming down to Atlantis, they were welcomed back by a two solid hours of debriefing, followed by Lorne presenting John with three weeks' worth of paperwork conscientiously put aside for him.
19) At the wake, he's by the paddock, off apart from everyone like always, and she could pretend she didn't see him, but Nancy's never run from anything.
20) This, John thought, was why Teyla was so integral to the team.
21) They stepped through the Stargate into a bright summer morning.
22) "You could've made her male, you know," Sheppard says.
23) The IOA requested Dr. McKay, but it didn't take much for John to convince Colonel Carter to send him to give the intermediate report instead.
24) The heat off the Hatching Grounds was so oppressive that Rodney could feel it sitting on the hewn stairs several levels up.
25) People always made fun of Rodney's hypochondria, and still do: doctors impatiently glossing over inconsistent test results, lab techs leaving lemons on his keyboard.
Patterns. Umm. They're all SGA? (I hadn't realized that I hadn't posted any non-SGA fic in the last year...obsessed, much?)
...d00ds, I write the most boring first lines. Some of these are hopelessly random. I open with dialogue when I feel like it. I start with "the" a lot. I usually use first names (especially for the POV char), and the POV char is usually named/established in the first line. Er, except when they're not.
Several of these have the main plot/theme stated outright in the opening, with the rest of the story simply expanding on it...didn't realize I did that. They're also shorter than I usually think of my sentences as being, on average...I don't betray my tragic semicolon addiction in the first line. I think my favorite is #4 for silly straightforward simplicity. Or else #8, because I secretly believe all great stories begin with "once upon a time."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-08-30 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-31 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-12 07:13 pm (UTC)But the list is full of a nice variety of sentences. In quite a number of them I can tell who is speaking, and in even more I instantly get a sense of the mood etc of the piece, which is great. And several of them make me want to read the story they're attached to, :) Which I might well do (eg. 20) This, John thought, was why Teyla was so integral to the team.). And some of them make me go 'oh, you wrote that?' (like the pern one or the oni one... both of which I liked very much, in case I never told you in the first place. (I have this bad habit of reading offline and then forgetting to comment on them when I go back online))
no subject
Date: 2008-09-13 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-02 10:35 pm (UTC)I wanted to be part of the cool crowd too! (http://utensil-drawer.livejournal.com/54339.html)
>^_^<
MEOW!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-03 07:13 am (UTC)