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first lines meme
Post the first line from your 25 most recent fanfics and try to find a pattern.
Being a firm believer in the principle that larger sample sizes = more valid conclusions, I posted 30.
1) Sasuke's first thought was: there is an excess of space in the desert.
[Anchored in Dust -- Naruto]
2) In the line of Miranda's smile is a childhood spent as sole mistress of an empty kingdom, princess in blood and stature and everything but name; in the soft steel of her eyes is the bridge built for her by powerful men, cloaks laid over the muddy waters of adolescence, that she might step delicately from maiden to queen without dirtying her feet.
[all afire with me -- The Tempest]
3) "Where are we going?"
[Uncertainty Principles -- Doctor Who]
4) As a general rule, the way humans think about the universe is incorrect by a magnitude of a single dimension.
[Resonance Structures -- Doctor Who]
5) "I'm going to draw you," she says as she sits down.
[every man must choose his way -- Bones]
6) "Well, if you consider the -- hey --"
[five awkward moments -- Bones]
7) When approaching a trauma scene there are guidelines and priorities to be followed and even though Sakura can barely hear Tsunade's iron voice grinding away over the frantic scuff of her own feet on the ground, she's been trained to the point where her limbs are not her own.
[Triage -- Naruto]
8) The single rule of social conduct for Japanese girls that Haruhi follows is that which decrees that love is never spoken aloud; love must be noticed; although she has become accustomed to seizing power in ways that most girls never will, she refuses to relinquish this last bastion of femininity.
[even the milky way -- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]
9) "Fire?"
[Solfege -- Naruto]
10) It begins with the way Sasuke reaches out and picks up Naruto's hand, with the way his lips are dry and smooth and he never even blinks as he pulls Naruto's fingers into his mouth.
[Gloss -- Naruto]
11) When Naruto closes his eyes he can just about imagine two moves into any hypothetical situation -- perhaps this and then perhaps that and then his attention unravels like a loose thread, because in a fight he thinks with his muscles and with the hot bright rush of chakra but never with anything so difficult as words.
[The Listening Sky -- Naruto]
12) Sai knows that the name that was chosen for him was a fortuitous one, because when his teammates say the first syllable of another name and then break off, embarrassed, it sounds similar enough that he can pretend that he didn't notice.
[talking for the dead -- Naruto]
13) On the first day of Sakura's training, she finds the Fifth Hokage asleep at her desk, surrounded by sake bottles and drooling into a pile of mission reports.
[Five people that Sakura punches in the face -- Naruto]
14) Crouching under the low table requires Mai to simulate obesiance, her palms and her legs laid flat against the floor, and for this reason she thinks that perhaps Azula will take longer to find her this time -- she would never choose a hiding space that requires such a position.
[Unbolt the Dark -- Avatar: The Last Airbender]
15) It's been eleven hours and fifteen minutes since I killed my brother and I can't get the smell of rubber off my hands.
[Ask Me How -- Dexter]
16) "What did I just -- ow -- why did someone leave a box on my seat?"
[five gifts casey mccall has given dan rydell -- Sports Night]
17) She wakes up to Ron whispering the same words over and over and Harry repeating them back, a sound as familiar to her as the thump of her own overloud heart.
[untitled triofic -- Harry Potter]
18) The girl has an ice-carved look, her features all in sharp shades of blue and white, a cold drowning depth to the shadows and hollows of her face.
[Snegurochka -- Supernatural]
19) There is a long cold river tipped with the petals from God only knows what flowers; nothing grows on the banks but grass.
[untitled Mordred/Galahad -- Milliways/Arthurian]
20) Hikaru maintains, when pressed, that it's all their mother's fault.
[Daddy's Gonna Buy You A Looking Glass -- Ouran High School Host Club]
21) Of the twelve pairs of ribs that comprise the thoracic cage, ten are attached to the sternum and two are floating, which makes Padma imagine pressing her wand to the bruised skin of someone's back and whispering Wingardium Leviosa until their bones slot into place.
[Healer -- Harry Potter]
22) Later, Rodney never quite links the first encounter to all of the ones that come after it; for one thing, he's only eight years old when it happens.
[The Holes in the Ground -- Doctor Who/Stargate: Atlantis]
23) These are the things that Lucy finds infuriating: transparent liquids, vanilla ice cream, slow music, and people who cannot speak Shakespeare correctly.
[No Sleepers Must Sleep -- Doctor Who]
24) They are what they become, which is the spontaneous dispersal of energy.
[Mendelian Inheritance -- Doctor Who]
25) "What, so now you're my psychiatrist?"
[Twelve Pater Nosters -- Hard Core Logo]
26) Sailing away from Elizabeth for the first time, you are half-expecting your heart to break and leak blood into the locked chest.
[turn your sail (never say we die) -- Pirates of the Caribbean]
27) A long long time ago Lee went to the temple and arranged thin wooden statues in front of him, and he was told clap your hands together.
[A Sunny Day In Tartarus (The Nameless Things Remix) -- Battlestar Galactica]
28) You will remember the way Rodney’s eyes widen in awe and the way it feels to set your feet against the floor and give commands.
[No More To Leave it -- Stargate: Atlantis]
29) "Do you have a comment on today’s meetings?"
[what the thunder said -- Wasteland RP]
30) "Why did you hire me?" she asks him, three hours into the first day.
[take to witness all the gods -- House MD]
~
Well, let's see!
- Eight out of thirty are dialogue.
- It is rather obvious how incapable I have become of writing in anything but the present tense.
- Far fewer semicolons than there could have been, I think :D
- I love opening lines (though I love closing lines more!) but unless someone else's more objective eye can find one, I don't think there's much of a pattern to them. I like them to set the tone for a fic: if it's going to be prose-y, I try to make it lyrical. If it's going to be dialogue-driven or fast-paced, I try to dive right in.
I think my favourite opening line I've ever written was the one for 'Healer', actually.
Being a firm believer in the principle that larger sample sizes = more valid conclusions, I posted 30.
1) Sasuke's first thought was: there is an excess of space in the desert.
[Anchored in Dust -- Naruto]
2) In the line of Miranda's smile is a childhood spent as sole mistress of an empty kingdom, princess in blood and stature and everything but name; in the soft steel of her eyes is the bridge built for her by powerful men, cloaks laid over the muddy waters of adolescence, that she might step delicately from maiden to queen without dirtying her feet.
[all afire with me -- The Tempest]
3) "Where are we going?"
[Uncertainty Principles -- Doctor Who]
4) As a general rule, the way humans think about the universe is incorrect by a magnitude of a single dimension.
[Resonance Structures -- Doctor Who]
5) "I'm going to draw you," she says as she sits down.
[every man must choose his way -- Bones]
6) "Well, if you consider the -- hey --"
[five awkward moments -- Bones]
7) When approaching a trauma scene there are guidelines and priorities to be followed and even though Sakura can barely hear Tsunade's iron voice grinding away over the frantic scuff of her own feet on the ground, she's been trained to the point where her limbs are not her own.
[Triage -- Naruto]
8) The single rule of social conduct for Japanese girls that Haruhi follows is that which decrees that love is never spoken aloud; love must be noticed; although she has become accustomed to seizing power in ways that most girls never will, she refuses to relinquish this last bastion of femininity.
[even the milky way -- The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]
9) "Fire?"
[Solfege -- Naruto]
10) It begins with the way Sasuke reaches out and picks up Naruto's hand, with the way his lips are dry and smooth and he never even blinks as he pulls Naruto's fingers into his mouth.
[Gloss -- Naruto]
11) When Naruto closes his eyes he can just about imagine two moves into any hypothetical situation -- perhaps this and then perhaps that and then his attention unravels like a loose thread, because in a fight he thinks with his muscles and with the hot bright rush of chakra but never with anything so difficult as words.
[The Listening Sky -- Naruto]
12) Sai knows that the name that was chosen for him was a fortuitous one, because when his teammates say the first syllable of another name and then break off, embarrassed, it sounds similar enough that he can pretend that he didn't notice.
[talking for the dead -- Naruto]
13) On the first day of Sakura's training, she finds the Fifth Hokage asleep at her desk, surrounded by sake bottles and drooling into a pile of mission reports.
[Five people that Sakura punches in the face -- Naruto]
14) Crouching under the low table requires Mai to simulate obesiance, her palms and her legs laid flat against the floor, and for this reason she thinks that perhaps Azula will take longer to find her this time -- she would never choose a hiding space that requires such a position.
[Unbolt the Dark -- Avatar: The Last Airbender]
15) It's been eleven hours and fifteen minutes since I killed my brother and I can't get the smell of rubber off my hands.
[Ask Me How -- Dexter]
16) "What did I just -- ow -- why did someone leave a box on my seat?"
[five gifts casey mccall has given dan rydell -- Sports Night]
17) She wakes up to Ron whispering the same words over and over and Harry repeating them back, a sound as familiar to her as the thump of her own overloud heart.
[untitled triofic -- Harry Potter]
18) The girl has an ice-carved look, her features all in sharp shades of blue and white, a cold drowning depth to the shadows and hollows of her face.
[Snegurochka -- Supernatural]
19) There is a long cold river tipped with the petals from God only knows what flowers; nothing grows on the banks but grass.
[untitled Mordred/Galahad -- Milliways/Arthurian]
20) Hikaru maintains, when pressed, that it's all their mother's fault.
[Daddy's Gonna Buy You A Looking Glass -- Ouran High School Host Club]
21) Of the twelve pairs of ribs that comprise the thoracic cage, ten are attached to the sternum and two are floating, which makes Padma imagine pressing her wand to the bruised skin of someone's back and whispering Wingardium Leviosa until their bones slot into place.
[Healer -- Harry Potter]
22) Later, Rodney never quite links the first encounter to all of the ones that come after it; for one thing, he's only eight years old when it happens.
[The Holes in the Ground -- Doctor Who/Stargate: Atlantis]
23) These are the things that Lucy finds infuriating: transparent liquids, vanilla ice cream, slow music, and people who cannot speak Shakespeare correctly.
[No Sleepers Must Sleep -- Doctor Who]
24) They are what they become, which is the spontaneous dispersal of energy.
[Mendelian Inheritance -- Doctor Who]
25) "What, so now you're my psychiatrist?"
[Twelve Pater Nosters -- Hard Core Logo]
26) Sailing away from Elizabeth for the first time, you are half-expecting your heart to break and leak blood into the locked chest.
[turn your sail (never say we die) -- Pirates of the Caribbean]
27) A long long time ago Lee went to the temple and arranged thin wooden statues in front of him, and he was told clap your hands together.
[A Sunny Day In Tartarus (The Nameless Things Remix) -- Battlestar Galactica]
28) You will remember the way Rodney’s eyes widen in awe and the way it feels to set your feet against the floor and give commands.
[No More To Leave it -- Stargate: Atlantis]
29) "Do you have a comment on today’s meetings?"
[what the thunder said -- Wasteland RP]
30) "Why did you hire me?" she asks him, three hours into the first day.
[take to witness all the gods -- House MD]
~
Well, let's see!
- Eight out of thirty are dialogue.
- It is rather obvious how incapable I have become of writing in anything but the present tense.
- Far fewer semicolons than there could have been, I think :D
- I love opening lines (though I love closing lines more!) but unless someone else's more objective eye can find one, I don't think there's much of a pattern to them. I like them to set the tone for a fic: if it's going to be prose-y, I try to make it lyrical. If it's going to be dialogue-driven or fast-paced, I try to dive right in.
I think my favourite opening line I've ever written was the one for 'Healer', actually.
no subject
no subject
Other patterns: words/clauses that position the line in time; "-ing" clauses.
Also I love your use of the word "tipped" in 19, wish I had done it, and am seriously tempted to clandestinely assassinate you and claim ownership of this usage.
no subject
1, 8, [10], 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 28 *
However, you still have a tendency to build a lot of indirection into your sentences ... like you're easing into them. For example, #20 is eased/slowed by the clause "when pressed," which separates out the subject-verb-object parts of the sentence.
And I think 2/[8]/21/23 exhibit a structure that is very very typical of you.
* 23 technically counts but I think the more traditional/direct structure would have been "Lucy finds these things infuriating." Um, I wasn't very consistent on whether or not I included these kinds of sentences in the count.