First lines
Jun. 5th, 2010 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupI'm finicky about first lines; I think they're almost as important as last lines in defining the story and the reader's experience of it. Here are mine since the beginning of the year. (Twenty! I've written twenty fics this year! Granted, most of them were drabbles, but still...)
~~~~~
Dreams are the forebrain's interpretation of random signals from the hindbrain. (Lift)
Buffy was having a nice, quiet evening. (Evening In)
Spike woke up in Angel’s old Sunnydale apartment. (Opportunity and Motive)
Dawn scowled at him over her textbook. “But you lived this stuff.” (Doomed to Repeat)
Spike critiqued the dresses ("What, did the woman grown a fungus?") and Buffy played “Spot the vampire” (because really, what living thing could be that thin?). (Survivors)
Three weeks after, Xander went to the Fish Tank. (Leveled)
He reminded Dawn of Andrew. (Unassuming)
His definition of Faith is bound in coils of cigarette smoke. (Old Habits)
It took Willy to explain it to her. “It’s like you got a chihuahua, you know?” (Commercial Enterprise)
"Had we," began the poet, who then delineated his trivial animal ambition in words that, Wesley suggested in tones distant and cooly, offensively superior, were somehow better chosen than other words, even though the feeling of lust/rut/reproduce in them was the same. (World Enough, And)
It's addiction and he's still psych major enough to see it, but that’s why he stays in the abandoned hut at jungle’s edge and lets the hostile drain him, ounce by ounce, every nerve ecstatically afire, until the day this woman Sam walks in, shoots his hostile goddess faceless, and saves him. (What She Knew)
He's like a mirror but only hers, distorted yet still returning an image of something like herself: predatory (she accepts that now) and violent (again with the acceptance, hard-won), driven and relentless (however different the things that’ve driven them each so far), and let's not forget fashion-conscious, blond. (Through the Looking Glass)
The first time Willow ever visited Xander in the hospital, she followed his Uncle Rory down the tiled hallway, shivering in the air-conditioned chill and and clutching her wrapped package with determined unworry. (Paper Gowns and Hospital Crowns)
The sun hadn’t even risen yet when she woke him, pushing and kicking in quarters ever more cramped. (Children's Tales)
Giles had been looking forward to this since the morning of that first day at Sunnydale High School, when a smirking senior interrupted Giles’ survey of the grimoires to ask for Penthouse. (At Last)
'Real' doesn't always imply 'solid' and anyway every time she stubs her toes or pinches herself or - just that one time - slides a blade through her skin, it's clear she's solid enough: cavity-free teeth and bones she only remembers having broken. (Weightless)
The glow of the late-afternoon Roman sun warmed Buffy’s kitchen, and Giles’ voice buzzed distantly in her ear. (She Saves the World a Lot)
The first thing he sees in the hospital room is the vase overflowing with sunflowers and daisies and gladiolas. (The Ones Not Kissed)
Buffy has certain difficulties with this metaphor stuff. (Figuratively Speaking)
The secret was leather, Willow’d decided. (Cured Skins of Dead Animals)
~~~~~
Even leaving out my responses to the three-sentence ficmeme, I clearly tend towards longish opening sentences. I'm also big on setting the scene right off: who, where, when. Also establishing place in canon, if I can manage it. And hey, if I can get the theme in there from the get-go, something to bring the whole fic back around to by the end, it doesn't really get much better.
In other things, "The Ones Not Kissed" and "Paper Gowns and Hospital Crowns" both got nominated in the new round of the Sunnydale Memorial Awards. Thank you, kind nominator(s)!
~~~~~
Dreams are the forebrain's interpretation of random signals from the hindbrain. (Lift)
Buffy was having a nice, quiet evening. (Evening In)
Spike woke up in Angel’s old Sunnydale apartment. (Opportunity and Motive)
Dawn scowled at him over her textbook. “But you lived this stuff.” (Doomed to Repeat)
Spike critiqued the dresses ("What, did the woman grown a fungus?") and Buffy played “Spot the vampire” (because really, what living thing could be that thin?). (Survivors)
Three weeks after, Xander went to the Fish Tank. (Leveled)
He reminded Dawn of Andrew. (Unassuming)
His definition of Faith is bound in coils of cigarette smoke. (Old Habits)
It took Willy to explain it to her. “It’s like you got a chihuahua, you know?” (Commercial Enterprise)
"Had we," began the poet, who then delineated his trivial animal ambition in words that, Wesley suggested in tones distant and cooly, offensively superior, were somehow better chosen than other words, even though the feeling of lust/rut/reproduce in them was the same. (World Enough, And)
It's addiction and he's still psych major enough to see it, but that’s why he stays in the abandoned hut at jungle’s edge and lets the hostile drain him, ounce by ounce, every nerve ecstatically afire, until the day this woman Sam walks in, shoots his hostile goddess faceless, and saves him. (What She Knew)
He's like a mirror but only hers, distorted yet still returning an image of something like herself: predatory (she accepts that now) and violent (again with the acceptance, hard-won), driven and relentless (however different the things that’ve driven them each so far), and let's not forget fashion-conscious, blond. (Through the Looking Glass)
The first time Willow ever visited Xander in the hospital, she followed his Uncle Rory down the tiled hallway, shivering in the air-conditioned chill and and clutching her wrapped package with determined unworry. (Paper Gowns and Hospital Crowns)
The sun hadn’t even risen yet when she woke him, pushing and kicking in quarters ever more cramped. (Children's Tales)
Giles had been looking forward to this since the morning of that first day at Sunnydale High School, when a smirking senior interrupted Giles’ survey of the grimoires to ask for Penthouse. (At Last)
'Real' doesn't always imply 'solid' and anyway every time she stubs her toes or pinches herself or - just that one time - slides a blade through her skin, it's clear she's solid enough: cavity-free teeth and bones she only remembers having broken. (Weightless)
The glow of the late-afternoon Roman sun warmed Buffy’s kitchen, and Giles’ voice buzzed distantly in her ear. (She Saves the World a Lot)
The first thing he sees in the hospital room is the vase overflowing with sunflowers and daisies and gladiolas. (The Ones Not Kissed)
Buffy has certain difficulties with this metaphor stuff. (Figuratively Speaking)
The secret was leather, Willow’d decided. (Cured Skins of Dead Animals)
~~~~~
Even leaving out my responses to the three-sentence ficmeme, I clearly tend towards longish opening sentences. I'm also big on setting the scene right off: who, where, when. Also establishing place in canon, if I can manage it. And hey, if I can get the theme in there from the get-go, something to bring the whole fic back around to by the end, it doesn't really get much better.
In other things, "The Ones Not Kissed" and "Paper Gowns and Hospital Crowns" both got nominated in the new round of the Sunnydale Memorial Awards. Thank you, kind nominator(s)!
