First Lines Meme

[thisbluespirit]

I got this from jjpor, who got it off clocketpatchand now primsong's got in on the act, too. I can't put it off any longer!

1. Post the first lines of all your fics.
2. What does this say about you?

I was thinking about this (we were talking about opening lines being short, etc. I spent much of Thursday morning doing the time honoured librarian activity known as weeding and kept looking at first lines. My statement/question / whatever + explanation in second line practice is pretty widespread. This proves, as usual, I am everything but original! It seems to me, most of us think in terms of first paragraphs and this whole thing was quite painful. I kept wanting to save second lines under flimsy excuses. Some of them are okay, some fun and some plain bad. (Thank goodness for This Time Round DW stories - by default some of them come out interesting out of context.)

1. First Lines
A Handbag Story: Tegan walked coatless out into a cold, rainy London, her vision blurred with tears and no idea what she was supposed to do next.

A Season (Seven) With Zoe: “Brigadier,” said Zoe, running forward.

A Spot of Festive Shopping: Tegan left the console room and blinked to find everything had turned misty and cold.

Anarchist Sprites: A young Asian man, casually dressed, crosses to the shabby newsagent’s opposite the closed down theatre. 
 

Ballad of Suicide: What was the point of it all?

Between Times: His companion rubbed dirt from her hands as she marched back into the console room. 
 

Bric a Brac: Nine entered a handy new hardware store, looking around him at the scruffy shelves, long counter and endless boxes of odd objects from all corners of the universe. 
 

Companion Classes: The Doctor fixed the screen for the slide projector after much cursing and impatience at its refusal to co-operate, dimmed the lights and produced a baton and prepared to begin.

Defence of the Realm: It was growing late but Harry Pearce wasn’t moving from his desk in Thames House. 

 Don’t Drink the Water: She knew it was a bad day the moment the wild-eyed, curly-haired lunatic sidled up to her on the park bench.
 

Emptiness: The world was blank. 
 

Five Times Liz Shaw and the Brigadier Saved the World: Liz had spent nearly an hour washing herself more thoroughly than she could ever remember.

Harry in a Hole: It was still dark when he opened his eyes. 
 

Home? “I only asked a question,” said Donna loudly as they walked through damp and dripping woodland. 
 

How the West Was Lost: Until the last five minutes, it had been a quiet morning at UNIT HQ. 
 

Matchmaking: It wasn’t simply another experiment, Susan reasoned.

Only Visiting This Planet: Lights in the sky.

Spanner in the Works: Martha Jones followed the Doctor down a wide, tree-lined suburban road with an amused look in her dark eyes.

Strangers at Fairhurst: "Charming!" proclaimed the Doctor, stepping out of the TARDIS into a green field in bright sunshine.

Surprise! “Doctor?” said Benny, her voice thin in the pitch darkness. 
 

The Boy, the Wolf and the Weapon: “I’m not sure,” said Angela, “that it was a good idea to let Jadi and Wil go off by themselves.”

UNIT: Haunting: “Where’s the Doctor?” 
 

UNIT: Framed: There was something different about UNIT HQ that morning.

UNIT: How to Say Goodbye: It wasn’t the Doctor, thought Liz, who was the problem.

UNIT: Invisible Man: The Brigadier marched into the UNIT HQ laboratory and folded his arms in impatience. 
 

UNIT: Undercover: The Brigadier, Liz and the Doctor regrouped in the laboratory at UNIT HQ. 
 

UNIT: Unfinished: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was a practical man, perhaps sometimes a little too practical and down-to-earth for the commanding officer of a top secret organisation that fought off alien invasions on a weekly basis. 
 

Unwanted: Tegan was sitting in her room, unable to forget Nyssa’s absence and she wanted someone to talk to. 
 

Waiting Game: She knew exactly how to get what she wanted.

Double Take (Happy Endings, Hasty Exits 2): “Don’t be ridiculous,” said the Doctor. “Marry Harry? Our Harry?”

Aliens Made Me Do It? (Happy Endings, Hasty Exits, no.???): "Do stop shouting, there's a good fellow," said the Doctor, once the Brigadier had finally paused for breath. 

Love & Science (First line of first drabble only!): Paradise was too green for him.

This Time Round stories (Still Doctor Who, of course! Oh, how I love the Round, let me count the ways. I must write some more, but the straight Who fic as opposed to intertextuality and being Outside Reality has me busy enough for the moment).

Then Do That Over: First Year Camp: Why a log book for school camp, I hear you ask. 
 

(And this is the complete paragraph, for an example)
I’m still sticking on the whole question of ‘why school?’ and ‘First year camp?’ And how come yesterday my biggest problem was avoiding any more embarrassing cross-dressing incidents during Storytime, while today I woke up to find I’d been a PE teacher at H G Wells for two years?

TDTO Ghosthunting: Have decided to continue with log as it is useful for looking busy in staff room.

Master Test: “Right," snarled the hideous form of the Traken Master. "I've been hearing rumours about you - taking in stray kittens, watching children's television, playing cupid for the Fifth Doctor and who knows what else"

Murder at Mill Cottage: I suppose it all began several months ago, heading for tea-time on a Tuesday, or a Thursday (but definitely not a Wednesday, as that’s when I do my stint at the hospital) when Polly Wright made an appointment to see me.

Plot and Loophole: "And I don't even know why I ended up doing this!" Polly wailed, head down on the table.

TTDO Polly’s Guide to the Rules: 10. Being the Most Popular Girl in the School takes dedication, effort and not always doing the things one wants to.

TTDO Redefinition: If Alistair had known that his plan to ask out Elizabeth Shaw would
not run as follows:
a) Find out more about Liz
b) Get Jon Doctor out of the way
c) Ask her out
but would, in fact involve trouble even getting from a to b and never actually reach c, he probably would have gone ahead anyway, since he wasn't one to give up easily, but he might have thought twice about it first. 
 

Storytime! Revolting Rhyme: The Master had been waiting for this chance ever since his requested library book had come in.

Storytime! Beauty and the Beast: Izzy was in a thoughtful mood.

Storytime! Pride and Prejudice: Izzy had been racking her brains over what to do when she was too busy for storytime or wanted a day off.

Storytime! Gereint and Enid: "What's so difficult about it?" asked Gwen Cooper. "You manage those children with no sweat at all, but when it comes to reading them a
bedtime story -."

Storytime! Rapunzel: Izzy flung herself halfway across the Round, onto a bar stool and banged her head down on the bar itself.

Story time! Sequelitis: The Master was contemplating choice of story as he made his by now usual trip to the creche.

A Tale of Two Fashion Houses: The Eighth Doctor looked up as a young, dark-haired girl approached his table.

TARDIS Speculation: "Look at this!" The Second Doctor waved a large paperback book around excitedly.

Other Fandoms (shock horror):

Promises (Dungeons & Dragons): He had that set look on his face as he pressed back against the great door, keeping it shut against the enemy.

Once Upon a Dream (Reworking of Sleeping Beauty): She dreamed.

Calculations (On The Up): It was the beginning of a new day and something of a new era for the Carpenter household, but nothing looked any different to Sam, chauffeur to Tony Carpenter.

The Ingenuity of Edith Artois (or The Nicked Knockwursts Get Nicked Again): Madame Edith Artois hid behind the curtain in the Colonel’s office in the chateau and held her breath as a German soldier searched the room, praying to avoid discovery.

Grief, Observed: There was music playing downstairs.

2. What does this say about me?
Aside, from my first lines aren't all that good? Well, I need to find a new opening next time I do a Storytime!, that's for sure. And Calculations: Oh, dear. Can you see how worried I am about people not knowing the show and giving away unneccessary info in the first line?

But I quite like Storytime! Revolting Rhymes and UNIT: UNfinished and Don't Drink the Water, so that's cheered me up.

This says: next time I open a story it will be a long, descriptive line just to show I can. (Ooh. It will be, actually. The next fic I have lined up has to open with something like: London: shining capital of half the known world (and progress on to sewers).

I should have done this sooner and then I wouldn't have spent all week thinking about opening lines.

Comments

[primsong.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed these - and as far as what is says about the way you open your tales, I mostly note that your style sets the scene with who is involved, rather than painting the background season or setting first. Where is this person and why are secondary to the fact it is *them* - the camera pulls away to show what's around them only after it is established who we will be following.

Some of these are quite intriguing!

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you. Yes, you're right. Never mind the scenery, look at the people is very much me in writing mode. I am all impressed with your incisiveness now.

If you are interested, my This Time Round account is here.
It is bizarre but great fun. I especially love the Doctor Who 'high school' H G Wells and Storytime! where DW characters are forced to act out stories for the entertainment of the toddlers. (It's okay, there's a FAQ.)
Everything else is on Teaspoon or in this journal. (Barring one or two I slipped in, unfinished/unposted).

And I do rather like the one about the Master with his library book, even if it was me what wrote it. ;-)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

I also like the one about stray kittens and children's television. And: “Marry Harry? Our Harry?” is just...it's just Four, isn't it?

It is noteworthy how many of them name the character right in the first line; it's a very economical way of getting straight into the scene, straight down to business as it were.

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks. Ah, yes, Master Test, in which the Traken & Assassin Masters challenge the other Masters to prove they're evil and they all end up doing sort of good deeds. And the Simm Master gets to tell Storytime! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Yes, that was fun to do. lol

You know, I've been thinking that you would fit in the Round like a glove. Or something. Not that I want to set more plot bunnies on you, cos when you see the wonderful silliness that is Storytime! you will probably be ravaged by them. They're all great but John Elliot's Sherlock Holmes and Macbeth stories are brilliant.

You need to go to alt.drwho.creative to post them, though, but it's there on Google groups if you don't have newsnet access (I don't, either).

[john_amend_all]

To be strictly, pedantically, accurate, you don't have to post to alt.drwho.creative. You can email stories to Imran and he'll put them on the archive; it's just much less likely that anyone will see them and comment on them. There used to be a TTR livejournal community as well but it's defunct.

[thisbluespirit]

Heh. No, I shall stand corrected! :-D I didn't think the lj comm was worth mentioning and I didn't realise about emailing Imran (although now you say it a faint bell is ringing somewhere, so I must have retained something from reading the FAQ!)

[john_amend_all]

I thought it would be as well to mention the LJ comm, even if only to warn people not to bother going there.

You realise, by the way, that you've made me spend the last two and a half hours cataloguing years' worth of Doctor Who drabbles and pulling out all their first lines?

[thisbluespirit]

Now, surely you noticed that I left all my drabbles out? You can't blame me for that!

(Even if I really hoped you would do your first lines as well.)

[clocketpatch]

Hmm, I was about to ask where I might find those This Time Round stories but then you provided the link. I must check those out at some point when I have more time. This meme seems to have expanded since I yoinked it off abbyromana, and now I wonder what my first lines say, aside from the fact that they are also all very short.

[thisbluespirit]

My extensive researches in the teenage section of [X] Library suggest an awful lot of people write short first lines - and longer second lines! Be not ashamed. Yours are great.

This Time Round is brilliant madness. I'm not up on all its intricacies, but the basic idea is recording what the Doctor Who characters get up to Outside Reality. This generally involves chaos, confusion, complaints about use of their characters, running jokes, Nyssa killing Adric (a lot) and... *Gives up*.

But people each have their own take, some of which gets carried on by everyone else, some of which remains that author's own 'thing'. But I adore Storytime especially and the world can always use more of it. :-D