Twenty First Lines

[deemoyza]

Swiped this meme frompict.

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line.

1. Royce and Grant stood on the roof of Bracket Towers, their faces awash with the glow of the digital landscape before them. ("Thy Will Be Done", Transistor)

2. Relm discovered the limits of her magic early on, when, tired of painting copies of butterflies, she attempted to paint a family for herself. ("Butterflies", FF6)

3. Etehril sat at the base of a ruined lighthouse, a crust of blood and sea spray drying on her cheeks, cut through by the trails of her last few tears. ("Becoming", FF8)

4. "You save the world, and it's still in shambles," Selphie muttered, shouldering her duffel bag and stepping off the train in Deling City. ("The Good Bed", FF8)

5. Had old Norak not dropped his Rupee wallet and gone back to retrieve it, he would not have seen the hooded figures peering out from the castle town gate, nor would he have seen them fling a tiny bundle into the river below. ("What the Water Gave Us", Ocarina of Time [WIP])

6. Red's eyebrows rose, and Auden watched curiosity displace determination in her eyes as she slowed her pace and eventually stopped running. ("Gold on Black Velvet", Transistor)

7. Celes stared at the smoldering targets before her, trying to steady her breathing and ignore the twitching in her fingers, the magic still firing through her nerves. ("As the Moon Chases the Sun", FF6)

8. Red had built her sandwich carefully, trying not to let the weight of each topping crush those beneath it. ("The Flowers of the Afternoon", Transistor)

9. "Wow, this handles like a dream," Zell said, flying Balamb Garden's new airship out over the ocean and turning it toward Esthar. ("Crystal-Clear Snafu", FF8)

10. "You said if people wanted to change the world, they would," Rinoa said, leveling a withering glare at her father, "but what about those who can't? ("Where There Are Those Who Have No Voice, There I Shall Go Singing", FF8)

11. It was Setzer's biggest gamble yet; Daryl was not a conventional woman—she eschewed finery and frippery for functional clothes and a well-tailored overcoat, and she left the other women to their gossiping and matchmaking as she took to the freedom of the skies—and he had no idea whether the dozen roses he carried would be met with her approval or her scorn, so he sighed in relief when she opened her door and took the bouquet into her arms, drawing it in from the chill night air and enthusing over the roses' beauty. ("A Dozen Roses in the Night", FF6)

12. Royce didn't ask to have the buildings named after him; the people of Cloudbank did that, even as they demanded redesigns of his projects with alarming regularity, and called it an honor. ("A Dubious Honor", Transistor)

13. The coffee at the station was never great, just enough to keep people going through long shifts and even longer investigations, but today's was particularly weak. ("Reawakening", Parasite Eve)

14. Rinoa stalked down the dormitory hallway, en route to the room she'd been assigned, but stopped abruptly at Quistis' door. ("Everybody Needs Somebody Sometimes", FF8)

15. As the languid strains of a new song drifted across the ballroom, Rinoa turned toward a commotion nearby and saw Quistis surrounded by a gaggle of young male SeeDs clamoring for her attention and squabbling among themselves over who would dance with her, while Quistis stood with her arms crossed and jaw set, looking as if she might explode at any moment. ("Care to Dance?", FF8)

16. Squall sometimes wondered if Ultimecia had managed to steal his eyes during Time Compression. ("Take You in My Arms and Fly Away with You Tonight", FF8)

17. It took over a year of planning, interrupted by saving the world, along with plenty of goading and just a bit of friendly blackmail, but Balamb Garden's first-ever Garden Festival was now in full swing. ("Party People", FF8)

18. Rinoa sat at a table inside Qake, tapping a pen against her thumb and looking down at her notebook filled with scribbled-out ideas. ("Dunk" [from "Special Order: Baker's Dozen"], FF8)

19. Auden may have lost his body, but Red was grateful to still have his voice. ("Seconds March into Silence", Transistor)

20. Auden knows that he has lost again, even before he opens his eyes and sees the sunlight streaming through his apartment's ill-fitting blinds. ("What's So Great About Sunshine", Transistor)

There is definitely a pattern of "character + action" here, and I'm not sure if I should be proud of my consistency, or worried that I've fallen into a rut (probably the latter). I know why I do it: I'm afraid that if I'm too vague, I will have lost the reader before they even get into the story. That old, "hook 'em from the first line" advice so many writing guides spout out. Looking at them all in a row, however, they seem to blur together, and frankly, sound quite juvenile/amateurish (not that I'm a pro or anything; but 30+ years of experience should count for something!).

At the very least, this might be the kind of wake-up call my writing needs!

I find it funny that the only line in this batch that doesn't follow this pattern (13) was from a story that I had a hell of a time starting. I hadn't played the game in years, and I was cobbling together personalities and atmosphere from LPs and wikis. While I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out, I was not confident about that fic at all, and I think it shows from the opening line.

I also think you can spot the opening lines of my three-sentence fics pretty easily. They're bloated, for lack of a better word. XD

Favorite line: 5. I think it sets up a mystery that (hopefully) hooks a reader, one whose resolution sets up the rest of the fic.

Runners-up: 10 (a simple, passionate question) and 16 (a very weird thought letting us know that Squall is Not Okay).

This meme definitely gave me something to think about!