First Lines Meme
Sep. 2nd, 2008 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aadlerI picked this up from
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sunnyd_lite, though it had been running for some time:So, that’s that.20. It’s a fairly widespread notion: to categorize human interactions as a series of contests, competitions, even battles. (“Zero-Sum Game”, 2008: BtVS)
19. She spotted him coming up the street, and knew while he was still little more than a moving silhouette that she had found her mark. (“Jasmine Tears”, 2008: BtVS)
18. Tito has a pickup truck. (“Precious Cargo”, 2007: BtVS)
17. They were not city-dwellers, for the seething press of numbers was unwelcome to them, jangling against the more meaningful communion they shared with one another. (“X-Factorial”, 2007: BtVS)
16. Doomed. (“An’ Foolish Notion”, 2007: BtVS/Angel)
15. Basically, it was just that kind of night. (“Walking After Midnight”, 2007: BtVS)
14. Once upon a time, there was a princess. (“God Save the Queen”, with sroni, 2006: BtVS)
13. She hadn’t expected ever to use this particular trick again; it had been formulated to meet a specific situation, of a type that didn’t come often. (“Spur of the Moment”, with sroni, 2006: MacGyver/Modesty Blaise)
12. He was outside her window again, hundreds of feet above the street. (“Icarus”, 2006: Superman)
11. Some things never changed. (“Fish and Visitors”, with vastid87, 2006: BtVS)
10. Her chest aches, lungs heaving to expel foreign breath. (“Quatrain”, 2006: BtVS)
9. “I can’t believe they did this,” the man said. (“Learning Curve”, 2006: BtVS)
8. Ethan normally scorns petty revenge, preferring to think more grandly. (“Parting Shot”, 2006: BtVS)
7. The halls are a familiar haven, welcoming and comfortable, and Marcie keeps close to the wall more from custom than necessity or wariness. (“Yet to Be Seen”, 2006: BtVS)
6. She stood in the pools of light from the street lamps, slim and blonde and pretty, hands on her hips and her mouth set in a pout. (“First Do No Harm”, 2006: BtVS)
5. Marshall Flinkman is an untestable genius. (“Savant”, 2006: Alias)
4. Allie was cranky this evening, which was hardly unusual, but just because Will was accustomed to it didn’t mean that he had much patience for it. (“Beg to Differ”, 2006: BtVS)
3. Personality Integration Profile on Subject WM (“Rorschach”, 2005: BtVS)
2. On Cordelia Chase’s twelfth birthday, something important happened, something of such deep and significant meaning to her that she never forgot it:
Nothing. (“Glass Ceiling”, 2005: BtVS)
1. “When did you know?” she asked, her gaze focused inside the oversized coffee mug she held. (“Dusk Over Pompeii”, 2005: BtVS)
So, what do I see when I look over this list?
Overall, the analysis told me little new, and most of what I learned was from what wasn’t there. Considering how much I love semicolons, it surprised me a bit that I used so few in my openings. Likewise, I tend to long, involved sentences, and again there wasn’t much of that. So apparently I like to start things off somewhat crisply.
Though it doesn’t necessarily show from those first lines, I also like to take up the narrative at a point when events are already in motion. Rather than build a situation, I’m more likely to join it in progress.
One last thing: I note that none of the opening lines were first-person. That isn’t representative; close to 25% of all my stories have been told from a first-person perspective, they just came before the 20 most recent. Which tells me something in itself: I’ve been moving away from that perspective recently, though at least three of the ideas I have in planning will return to it.
