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no friday night fic: instead, friday night memes
Two memes for the price of one! First, the first lines meme: my twenty most recent opening lines, to be scrutinized for patterns and other interesting things. For a few I've used the first two sentences rather than just the first one, but I don't think I'll be fined by the meme police.
1. For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, Benton Fraser is in a caboose, playing table hockey and being soundly beaten by a twelve-year-old boy.
2. Sam's in hospital nearly a month after he first wakes.
3. Ray Kowalski has always really loved Saturdays.
4. After Sirius sent Snivellus down the Willow, James didn't talk to him for a week.
5. New Burbage, 1998: Geoffrey's been out in the world for six months, and he still hasn't decided whether he'd glad or not.
6. Kara wasn't nervous about college. Kara didn't have any reason to be nervous about college; she had a rocking basketball scholarship, a seriously great boyfriend following her to NYU, a co-ed dorm floor, and a dad willing to carry some of her suitcases.
7. "We don't, um," Ray said; have to, Benton heard, although Ray didn't say it, although Ray carefully tied his hands against the cool slats of the headboard, the surety of the knots belying his uncertain voice.
8. In the summer up here everything goes a funny color, like some big artist in the sky has come down with one of those weird filters Ray's starting to see in movies now, or at least the ones that get played at the community center.
9. It was Ray's fault. Not in the immediate sense: Ray hadn't suddenly decided that he'd like to start running around an ice field like a headless chicken; it wasn't like he'd gone and made the same old rookie mistakes he'd made his first day.
10. If Ray was gonna take a guess, he'd say it started on the way back from the funeral home.
11. She watches until he has become a vanishing speck, her hand still pressed cold to the thin film protecting her from the vastness of space.
12. Upon arriving in Chicago, Benton Fraser's first moment of true culture shock occurred when one Detective Raymond Vecchio set a hand on his shoulder.
13. Chicago was a strange land. The cars went fast, the sky was too small, and everything was loud -- or not loud, jarring; artificial sounds.
14. Oliver doesn't come to the wedding.
15. "The time is eight-seventeen in the morning and New York City is ready for another clear winter day!" announced some radio personality, right in Carl Romeo's ear.
16. On the day Sam Tyler woke up a woman, his first reaction was resignation.
17. It was some years after Mary Lennox's arrival at Misselthwaite that she was given a governess.
18. It starts in a market on Bergezet in the Teragi system, during one of the Doctor's suspiciously normal outings.
19. Dust. Faith grins and glides down into a crouch, half-turning.
20. Outside the TARDIS doors, it begins to rain.
Patterns I have immediately noticed: as much as possible I will identify the POV character at the word go; if I do not do this, I'll generally at least give a sense of place. I also like to give a sense of time, which I did not know previous to this. I still use the present tense more than I thought I did.
I should probably be officially banned from using the word "Ray" in any more first lines ever. (A quick check of the WIP folder yields opening lines such as Ray'd always had a soft spot for the disadvantaged kids and Ray hadn't expected the sheer number of photographs Fraser would take and -- oh, thank goodness, I have a few where it's just Fraser in the opening line and one that's entirely dialogue! I should still be officially banned from using "Ray" in the opening line, though.)
What I love about this meme is the way that, if I've only written a few things every year, it tracks the evolution of my writing; because I'm actually producing things at a reasonable pace this year -- only the last five are from 2008 -- it instead tracks the evolution of my fandoms. Poor Doctor Who. It's kind of hilarious to see the Harry Potter fic sort of lurking among the welter of Canadian stuff, though.
And the second meme: Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post.
1. For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, Benton Fraser is in a caboose, playing table hockey and being soundly beaten by a twelve-year-old boy.
2. Sam's in hospital nearly a month after he first wakes.
3. Ray Kowalski has always really loved Saturdays.
4. After Sirius sent Snivellus down the Willow, James didn't talk to him for a week.
5. New Burbage, 1998: Geoffrey's been out in the world for six months, and he still hasn't decided whether he'd glad or not.
6. Kara wasn't nervous about college. Kara didn't have any reason to be nervous about college; she had a rocking basketball scholarship, a seriously great boyfriend following her to NYU, a co-ed dorm floor, and a dad willing to carry some of her suitcases.
7. "We don't, um," Ray said; have to, Benton heard, although Ray didn't say it, although Ray carefully tied his hands against the cool slats of the headboard, the surety of the knots belying his uncertain voice.
8. In the summer up here everything goes a funny color, like some big artist in the sky has come down with one of those weird filters Ray's starting to see in movies now, or at least the ones that get played at the community center.
9. It was Ray's fault. Not in the immediate sense: Ray hadn't suddenly decided that he'd like to start running around an ice field like a headless chicken; it wasn't like he'd gone and made the same old rookie mistakes he'd made his first day.
10. If Ray was gonna take a guess, he'd say it started on the way back from the funeral home.
11. She watches until he has become a vanishing speck, her hand still pressed cold to the thin film protecting her from the vastness of space.
12. Upon arriving in Chicago, Benton Fraser's first moment of true culture shock occurred when one Detective Raymond Vecchio set a hand on his shoulder.
13. Chicago was a strange land. The cars went fast, the sky was too small, and everything was loud -- or not loud, jarring; artificial sounds.
14. Oliver doesn't come to the wedding.
15. "The time is eight-seventeen in the morning and New York City is ready for another clear winter day!" announced some radio personality, right in Carl Romeo's ear.
16. On the day Sam Tyler woke up a woman, his first reaction was resignation.
17. It was some years after Mary Lennox's arrival at Misselthwaite that she was given a governess.
18. It starts in a market on Bergezet in the Teragi system, during one of the Doctor's suspiciously normal outings.
19. Dust. Faith grins and glides down into a crouch, half-turning.
20. Outside the TARDIS doors, it begins to rain.
Patterns I have immediately noticed: as much as possible I will identify the POV character at the word go; if I do not do this, I'll generally at least give a sense of place. I also like to give a sense of time, which I did not know previous to this. I still use the present tense more than I thought I did.
I should probably be officially banned from using the word "Ray" in any more first lines ever. (A quick check of the WIP folder yields opening lines such as Ray'd always had a soft spot for the disadvantaged kids and Ray hadn't expected the sheer number of photographs Fraser would take and -- oh, thank goodness, I have a few where it's just Fraser in the opening line and one that's entirely dialogue! I should still be officially banned from using "Ray" in the opening line, though.)
What I love about this meme is the way that, if I've only written a few things every year, it tracks the evolution of my writing; because I'm actually producing things at a reasonable pace this year -- only the last five are from 2008 -- it instead tracks the evolution of my fandoms. Poor Doctor Who. It's kind of hilarious to see the Harry Potter fic sort of lurking among the welter of Canadian stuff, though.
And the second meme: Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post.
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