#ten opening lines

[rmd-writes]

ten opening lines / writing patterns

thanks for the tags @three-drink-amy @orchidscript @kiwiana-writes @hippolotamus @jesuisici33 to share the first lines of the last 10 fics that I published and see if any patterns emerge

excluding any drabbles, and collabs because I am 98% certain I didn't write the opening line in unprofeshy, my last 10 opening lines are:

this year i will fall The thing about love is that it finds you when you least expect it.

get fucked (or die trying) “I’m going to be late,” Henry says, looking at his watch before zipping up his pants.

the key that unlocked me Henry does his best to ignore it, the force that pulls him towards Alex all evening.

too stressed to undress TK sets Lou II down on the couch when he hears his phone vibrating on the kitchen counter, scratching the top of his head softly when he releases him.

Are You Screwing With Me; This Is Not a Drill; A Helping Hand (yes, all three fics start with the same opening line) “Fuck.”

to love is to undress our names A wave of relief washes over him.

the way you make me feel (so real, so good) It’s been a day.

I gotta handle you just right “Oh my god,” Nancy says as she walks into their house, dropping her bag on the floor. “You’re obsessing over his insta again, aren’t you?”

I start with dialogue in about half of these fics (sorry Cora), and there are 5 LS fics, 4 RWRB fics and 1 SC fic in the mix. Beyond that, I'm not seeing any patterns! EDIT: Oh wait, I'm supposed to tag people to do this too! @welcometololaland @liminalmemories21 @strandnreyes @happiness-of-the-pursuit @carlos-in-glasses @indestructibleheart @heartstringsduet @stereopticons @gayrootvegetable

#ten opening lines #rmd writes

[justabigoldnerd]

Ten Opening Lines

Thank you so much @nicijones for the tag!!! This is so interesting!!!

Rules: list the first line of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any.

1. To Find Someone To Talk To, Who Likes The Way I Am:

"Chess Club."

2. Kintsukuroi:

"Fall creeps its way out of London, leaving behind crisp air that leaves Solo's cheeks pink, but doesn't make him shiver."

3. You Had To Be A Big Shot, Didn't You (You Had To Open Up Your Mouth):

"The shriek of the wind."

4. My Wings Have Been So Denied:

"Illya was nine years old when it happened."

5. Let Me Be Your Own Icarian Carrion:

"The wind is whipping his hair back and he is soaring after their mark with silent, outstretched wings."

6. I'm Going to the Stars Tonight:

"Illya's apartment doesn't feel like his own anymore."

7. She'll Tell You She's an Orphan After You Meet Her Family:

"“You absolutely incompetent mother fucker!” Gaby screeches, then continues to scream at him in English, German, and the little Russian she's been learning."

8. One More or One Less (Nobody's Worried):

"Gaby Teller pushed herself out from under the belly of the car she was working on and glared at him, swiping back the cloth he'd stolen."

9. Trapped Within An Abstract From A Moment Of My Life:

"The car had barely pulled to a stop in front of the building when Napoleon retrieved his weapon from his shoulder holster to check for a fourth time that it was loaded."

10. In Summer We Can Taste The Rain:

"Spring is wishing Hexham a warm goodbye, and while house arrest is never a good thing, Illya's partners have taken the downtime and pleasant weather as a vacation."

Patterns:

I feel like I tend to either open by throwing the reader straight into the scene head first, or use the first line to establish the setting lol

No pressure tagging @pippinoftheshire @yallwildinrn @huggiebird @heytheredeann @cha-melodius and anyone else who wants to join!!

#fanfic writing #fanfic authors #fanfics #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 #ten opening lines #tag game

[cha-melodius]

Ten Opening Lines

I was tagged by @kiwiana-writes, @myheartalivewrites and @historicallysam, thank you, this is one of my faves of these games. Idk if someone out there purposefully starts this tag game every March or what, but I've gotten tagged the previous two Marches and here we are again.

Ten First Lines Part 1 (March 2022) Ten First Lines Part 2 (March 2023)

Rules: list the first line of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any.

False Dichotomy The first thing Alex does when he wakes up is check his email.

Ain't No Place for a Better Man They’ve had easier jobs, that’s for damned sure.

Trying My Patience (Try Pink Carnations) I need you to take the delivery to the Schultz-Castillo wedding today [text]

You're the Perfect Gift for Me Alex is pretty sure things couldn’t possibly be worse.

Playing Cat and Mouse with the Light The very last person Illya expects to see sitting at the table designated for their meeting tonight is Napoleon Solo.

This Hell of a Season The distinctive rhythm of his partner’s knock sounds on the door of Henry’s hotel room, followed only a moment later by the man himself pushing into the room despite the fact that the door was locked.

Taste the Way You Bleed The sound of heated arguing carries down a long hallway into the living room, and Bea sighs. “They’re at it again.”

In the Dog Days David makes his first appearance one crisp day in October, when the leaves in Prospect Park have become a riot of golds and oranges.

Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

Enemies of the Ocean “What are you doing?” Loki asks, squinting across the lifeboat in the harsh light.

Patterns: This selection of fics very much captures my propensity to open a story with a snappy one-sentence paragraph, as it has been the past two years. Only two of these sentences actually have another sentence immediately following them in the same paragraph. I went back a few more fics just to look and there were definite exceptions to this rule, but it is still by far the most common way I start a fic. Hey, at least I'm consistent!

Tagging @loki-is-my-kink-awakening, @welcometololaland, @heytheredeann, @mirilyawrites, @cricketnationrise, @three-drink-amy, @dumbpeachjuice, @nicijones, @leaves-of-laurelin, @tintagel-or-cockleshells, @iboatedhere, @inexplicablymine, @indestructibleheart, @eusuntgratie, @bigassbowlingballhead, @getmehighonmagic, @magicandarchery, @violetbaudelaire-quagmire and anyone else who wants to jump in and do this!

#about my fics #about my writing #ten opening lines

[madsworld15]

Ten Opening Lines

tagged by: @winderlylandchime

Rules: list the first line of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any.

This can be multi-fandom, as you can tell with mine.

Heal Me, Hold Me, Make Me, Know Me - QAF

Brian woke up with a start.

The Ways You Made Me Feel Alive - QAF

Justin closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

There's Beauty When It's Bleak - QAF

Justin had been in New York for four months when he got the call.

When It Gets Too Much, I'll Be Right Beside You - Good Omens

“This website was supposed to be completely functional YESTERDAY!” Gabriel’s face looked like he could spit fire if given the opportunity. 

you kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath - Good Omens

Crowley climbed in his Bentley and didn’t look back.

Is It Cool That I Said All That? - Teen Wolf

The restaurant was filled to the brim with couples who were kissing and hand-holding.

I Think You Know I Love You A Lot - Teen Wolf

It was nearing 5 pm, and Derek was still at the office.

To Me, You Are Perfect - Teen Wolf

Stiles was tired. His whole body was being run through the mill with this pregnancy, and he couldn’t even talk about it.

I'm Tired and I Don't Wanna Fake It Anymore - Teen Wolf

Stiles was drunk. Sure, everyone else around him was also drunk, but Stiles was always the sober friend.

Every Thunder That Came Was One More I Might Not Get Through - Schitt's Creek

Patrick cowered in the back seat of the tan sedan.

Themes: I generally tend to start with a statement. It's always the middle of a moment or describes a feeling. I frequently use short, simple sentences to draw a reader in.

No pressure tagging: @lostcol @vulcanscully @thotpuppy @in-cracks-of-light and anyone else who sees this and wants to participate.

#ten opening lines #things I'm tagged in #my fanfiction #Queer as Folk #Good Omens #Teen Wolf #Schitt's Creek #fanfiction

[winderlylandchime]

Ten Opening Lines

tagged by: @lostcol 💜

Rules: list the first line of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any.

(btw this can be multi-fandom I’m just sticking with QAF)

I’ve Loved Her in Secret, I’ve Loved Her Out Loud

The thumpa thumpa beats for everyone but tonight it seems to be pulsing only for Brian and blond twink with the ass dancing alone on one of the raised platforms.

Chasing Dragons

It was two weeks after the election that I realized that dust happens.

beautiful like the darkness between the fireflies

“Cynthia!” Brian calls from his desk.

you’re like a tattoo (something I can’t undo)

Brian stands under the orange glow of the porch light and softly opens the lock and steps inside.

clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them

After Justin is kicked out of a second home in as many months, he runs away to New York City with vague plans to become a go-go dancer and real hopes that Brian will come and save him.

love is so short (forgetting is so long)

Gus sits by his father’s bedside, holding his hand.

carried me with you

I wasn’t paying close attention to what happened to Justin after we knew he was going to live, and he woke up, and seemed more or less okay.

(and I’d do it again)

It’s when Emmett does not immediately respond, “Don’t call me Honeycutt” that Brian begins to panic, his hand in the hair below him, stilling the movements of the mouth wrapped around his cock.

we didn’t know we could reach the stars (until we did)

Brian stands in the doorway, tracing the swell of Justin’s ass under the duvet with his eyes. He strides towards the bed, soundlessly, his path practiced to avoid any creaks in the floorboards.

Rage in LA (part I of Exposure)

About 4 years before Miley Cyrus had a party in the USA, I hopped off the plane at LAX myself.

As for themes… Um, I guess I like to start in the middle of the action? Does anyone else notice any themes?

no pressure tagging: @in-cracks-of-light @madsworld15 @thissugarcane @sheisraging @bartbarthelme and anyone else

#ten opening lines #things i’m tagged in #lostcol #my fanfiction #queer as folk #qaf fanfiction

[bg-sparrow]

Ten First Lines

I've been seeing a few people float this one around but not pressure ten folks by tagging, so I thought I'd share ten opening lines from my 10 most recent fics! They are all Back to the Future! Jump in if you want to!

Time Trap:

“Sounds illegal. I’m in.”

2. Survival is Insufficient:

“Why is he on the counter?”

3. If There Were No Thunder:

On March 15, 1973, tragedy befalls the McFly family.

4. The Manner of Giving:

About six weeks after Marty became Dr. Brown's part-time assistant, Hill Valley plunged into the blustery, gray landscape of a cold snap.

5. Crime Traveller:

“Not today, Satan!”

6. Where You Were (Time Circuits Series #3):

There's only one man who can help me.

7. Pennies From Heaven:

"Oh, hello. I'm Papa Doc. But of course, you knew that. I know you knew that because you're here about the story."

8. Once Upon a Time in the West:

In the spring of 1889 – on William McFly’s fourth birthday – a tornado touched down just outside Hill Valley. 

9. Once Upon a Time in the East:

June 14, 1889 OGDEN BOUND FOR OMAHA. KEEPING DISTANCE. MISS HV ALREADY. M

10. Stuck in Stuck in 1885 AU:

They might have looked like the same Marty, but they weren’t. 

#ten opening lines #writer ask game #tag game #back to the future #bttf fic #bttf #bgsparrow

[annabelle--cane]

being a somewhat strange person, your friends and family get used to hearing strange things about you rather quickly, until you say something that would knock an unsuspecting classmate or coworker flat but your well-acclimated closer companion simply nods and says "stands to reason," so there's a certain joy in occasionally saying something so unusual that your own mother of twenty-one years puckers her lips in shock and says "marina... that's not normal..."

#in other news: do any of you tend towards having really icy extremities #but sometimes feel your body finally heat up sufficiently and cross the line to become warm blooded again #that you can feel hot blood rush into your hands and feet and bring them back to a normal temperature within about ten seconds? #almost as though you needed to raise your central body heat to trigger opening the dams of heat for coldest parts? #if not then it's a very pleasant sensation! would recommend! #it's like stepping into a warm bath after coming in from the snow but just for my toes and fingers #marina marvels at life

[we-are-inevitable]

i'm a sucker for the "jack goes to santa fe but it's nothing like his dreams" trope

#especially when there's so much build-up. this is what he's staked his life on and its not worth it #i think theres something so near and dear to my heart about jack moving out west but coming back home to nyc #five-ten years down the line #most of his friends have families now. some of them are gone #hes not the king of lower manhattan anymore but at least he still knows the streets like the back of his hand #even if some of the shopfaces have changed #and give me jack seeing davey again (who always knew the dream wouldn’t work out) #davey dreaming that jack is safe and thinking about him and coming home #and then he finally *does.* yeah. davey welcoming him back with open arms despite it all #jack kelly #davey jacobs #david jacobs #newsies #livesies #newsies musical #javid #javey

[kneecap-homicide]

Throwback to when i busted this out in january:

#i was talking shit in the gc #about maths and excel and graphs #i say “graphs are my jam i cannot lie” #realise this is the opening line to a shitty rap #overcome with inspiration #ten minutes later i come up with this #you can tell i was in the depths of dissertation horrors #absolutely not working on my degree #mathematics #math #maths #science #studying #rap #shitpost

[merge-conflict]

a pair of open graves - silverv playlist

For those silverv pairings that are probably a bad idea!

#cyberpunk 2077 playlist #silverv #a pair of open graves #made this for me but i hope others vibe with it #my playlists #finally got the right vibe to use the evil version of i walk the line #weeding this down to ten makes it a high intensity playlist all the way through but that's my jam if i'm being honest #Spotify

[munch-mumbles]

ive been a little upset about it all night so i need to write out all the things that happened at work today and are bugging me so i can TRY to get it out of my head and actually RELAX bc i just keep pacing in circles around it instead of just accepting it and moving on

#for context i was working frying chicken today. ok so i arrive and literally all the chicken out expires within ten minutes of each other #meanwhile to remake everything takes about an hour 20 #tried my best to get everything out and replaced and make sure i have enough of everything and then take my break bc with chicken there are #few narrow windows to take your break in you have very little control over when it is #get back and while im getting ready for my next fry one of the assistant leaders comes back and passive aggressively asks 'everything ok?' #and when i say yeah shes starts saying how shes 'just checking' because apparently i didnt have enough chicken out for her liking and went #on about how we're in a chicken drive (I KNOW. I WORK CHICKEN SHE NEVER HAS.) #etc etc. i just say ok and she leaves #like 20 minutes later she comes fucking back to rag on me again about how i need to choose my break times better and i need to have more #chicken out there as back up (extremely difficult bc there is literally only so much room in the fryers. the batches i usually make already #nearly completely fill them up) blah blah and then when i try to explain how i WAS making pretty big batches people are just snatching them #up fast she keeps trying to walk out the door right away and keeps stopping and looking over her shoulder to just stare at me while i try t #finish my sentence #and she just. doesnt say anything in response when i do finish she just leaves #so clearly she didnt want a conversation she just wanted to rag on me #then later for cleanup the timing of everything just kept lining up inconveniently so i kept having to get in and out of raw cleaning gear #and slowing myself down and i end up having to stay almost 15 minutes late to finish cleaning #during cleaning i have to go grab a key to the back door to take out my trash and this one coworker i have was standing in the way of the #door. i say excuse me and she just stares at me and goes huh? #and i say i need a key and she barely moves out of the way without responding and she has a look like im bothering her #why are you acting like im being douchey. i just need a key. thats something she does a lot she acts like im inconveniencing her by asking #basic favors . ive stopped asking her to help me open the back door (sometimes needed if i also have raw garbage to take out and therefore #cant touch the key myself) for some reason she takes it upon herself to almost completely close the door after i walk out so when i come #back i have to awkwardly use my foot to reach around and pull the door open #ive asked her before not to do it and she just ignored me #GRAH GRAH. and then like i said in my last rb i realized while i was drivign home i forgot to wash a damn pan #im mostly worried about it because ive forgotten a couple times in the past too . in my defense its a pan i personally dont use but it just #gets left behind from first shift sometimes and then second shifters end up having to make sure its clean #im just irritateddd and im mad im worried about it all. its all little things piling up on each other #LOL I WROTE A LOT MORE BUT THE REST GOT CUT OUT IG I HIT A TAG LIMIT. tumblr voice ok dude quit your bitching !!

[iwantyoursexmp3]

insane thing to say when you remember where bobby's been for the last seven months, thirty days and approximately twenty hours

#like beau i know you're avoiding the whole he's dead thing but like he is actually not alive right now #the fact that the what does he know bit could be referring to either of them I LOVE WHEN DOUBLE MEANINGS #just realised the hour by hour timing for this chapter is fucked LMAOO im really gonna have to reimagine the opening scene #new lover boy first line probably after i've edited the current one ten times

[unopenablebox]

i was so grumpy and irritating all day today. we went whale-watching [which was absolutely breathtaking and i saw SO MANY WHALES and it was amazing] but first i was anxious about getting there and getting everything set up and choosing seats that didn’t make 🌸 seasick etc, and then afterward i was queasy and vaguely unwell and exhausted and stressed about getting my parents shepherded across the city properly & making sure everyone got food

but 🌸 is a perfect angel and was very sweet to me the whole time and everything worked out fine and they carried my bag up some stairs for me when my lungs were acting up AND went out to buy me dessert when i woke up from an accidental 5:25pm-8:30pm nap feeling ravenously hungry and miserable. and they are not mad at me for being grumpy and in fact didn’t even really seem to have registered how horribly snappish i was all day so plausibly it seemed worse to me than it was. so now i have tiramisu and am turning a sock heel and i saw SO SO MANY WHALES SO NEARBY. whales are so interesting and beautiful you have no idea

#i hadn't appreciated how long and serrated a humpback whale looks when it is just surfacing briefly #a line of humpback whales is a LOT like a giant sea serpent actually. w eshouldn't make fun of bishop olaus he was doing his best #it was absolutely tremendous. there were calves. two of them swam UNDER THE BOAT while we were at a standstill and i saw its horrible nostri #ls from like ten feet away. #just thrilling. fantastic experience. #box opener #[biologist surprised at own attitude that animals are thrlling and interesting] #i mean. i study individual cells and look down scornfully on Ecologists. so i kind of forget that i do in fact think animals are great

[lynsstrange]

Color guard/winter guard people, what is the worst injury you’ve ever sustained from it?

#my team has had every single one of these happen #it’s rough out here #me personally #my worst would probably be dropping my rifle on my toe after tossing a five #for context that’s 3/4 of the way to a high school gym’s ceiling #I was convinced my toe was broken for a week I was in so much pain every time I walked #I’ve had crazy stories though. girl on my team broke the same finger twice #another one got a concussion and bled all over her uniform during champs. one girl split her eyebrow open during warm up #and STILL performed ten minutes later with fresh stitches #my coach broke her toe right before a performance when she was in high school and had to be carried off the field #and that’s not all of it either #I’m not joking when I say shit gets WILDD #winter guard #color guard #guard #colorguard #winterguard #marching band #flag line #weapon line #Sabre #rifle #flag #polls #injuries #color guard poll

[remix-of-your-guts]

people who use the self checkout...... i am kissing you on the mouth

#there'll literally be a line of like ten people when there's six sec checkouts wide open 😭 #girl i'm the only cashier help me out

[lordsardine]

thank fuck i can relax now

#hashtag. got my fucking tickets #dudei had two laptops open. i clicked refresh on one ten seconds earlier than the other #this one i started out 173rd in line #the other i was like 1800 #and this concert sold out in ten min in other places #So™ happy with the seats i got. happy i got tickets. now i can focus back on work lmfao #miscellaneous #i realize like normal people employ these tactics for like taylor swift concerts and here i am #no ive never been to a 'real concert' yes ive been to boston symphony hall four times before