first lines meme

[deinonychus_1]

From various people on my f-list, namely <lj user="joereaves"> , <lj user="telperion_15" , and <lj user="lukadreaming"> .  

Post the first line from your 25 most recent fanfics and try to find a pattern.

List is in order from the most recent first.  

1. Abby doesn’t like needing to be rescued.

2. Life on Earth started in the ocean.

3. Strange new world.

4. It was barely dawn, and Connor was already running for his life.

5. Abby stared at yet another anomaly that hadn’t brought Connor home.

6. Connor hated this place.

7. “Guys? Anyone at home?”

8. Ryan lay propped on his elbow, watching Connor as he slept.

9. Stephen watched Abby move restlessly around the unconscious megaloceros.

10. “Look! It’s perfectly safe.”

11. Stephen stopped and looked around at the forest.

12. It was dark, and his head was pounding.

13. Some days Nick is terrified by this job.

14. Connor doesn’t talk so much any more

15. Being speechless was a new experience for Abby.

16. Abby hated the nights like this.

17. Mark talks about his departmental meetings, and Jenny tunes him out, occasionally agreeing where appropriate.

18. Jenny isn’t Claudia.

19. Connor was running like his life depended on it.

20. Ryan was enjoying a leisurely shower when he heard someone knocking on the door.

21. Connor looked himself up and down in the mirror

22. Ryan flicked through the channels before switching the TV off in vague disgust.

23. There was bright sunshine on the other side of the anomaly, and Ryan had to squint for a moment after the darkness of the warehouse.

24. “Oh, bloody hell,” Lester muttered. 

25. Nick had thought he was doing okay.

Hmmm. Don't know about spotting any patterns, but what's worrying me about this is that it turns out I haven't written nearly as much as I thought I had recently; I had to go all the way back to March to get 25. Also, a worrying amount of these are drabbles rather than proper full length fics. Bugger, I'm vaguely depressed by this now. 

Edit: Okay, what the hell did I do wrong with the lj user link thing? Clearly today is just a day of utter fail for me. *sulks*

Comments

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

Don't be! You're writing, and that's the main thing. Quality not quantity!

No clear pattern I can see, aside from the fact most of them have a name in, and not many are quotes. Yours are short, sharp 'get on with it' first lines, which I always like.

[deinonychus-1.livejournal.com]

Yours are short, sharp 'get on with it' first lines, which I always like.

True, I suppose I do have a habit of opening a fic by throwing the reader head-first into the action, which is always one way of getting them to read on.

I think I was disapointed because somehow I *thought* I'd written more than that this year. Maybe I hadn't realised how much work stress and stuff was putting a damper on my writing. That, and the year is rushing by so very fast, and fics that I was thinking were quite 'recent' were actually a month or so old.

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

I wonder if part of it is that we seem to have so many works in progress! I've got four or five on the go, so I'm writing regularly (plus trying to finish a humungous work writing project by the end of August), so the effort hasn't quite translated yet into finished stories *g*.

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

Edit: Okay, what the hell did I do wrong with the lj user link thing? Clearly today is just a day of utter fail for me. *sulks*

*Hands over choccie*

Are you using rich text or HTML? I use the former so I can highlight the name and use the icon in the toolbar. I never remember the html, despite Munchkin sending me an idiot's guide *g*.

[deinonychus-1.livejournal.com]

I use rich text. I just went straight for typing the code rather than the highlighting and using the toolbar, as every time I've tried to do it that way, especially if there is an lj cut somewhere in the post, it screws the formatting and for some reason the lj username appears at the bottom of the age underneath everything else, regardless of where it was originally placed on the page.

Grrr. Today was just a bit crap at work (this entire week, to be honest), so I'm just annoyed by lj playing up as well as everything else.

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

Grr for crap week!

I notice that does happen sometimes in LJ. I highlight the user name before doing the cut. And sometimes you have to click in the text, click again, clear the highlight and then try to type whatever it was. Bloody faff!

[telperion-15.livejournal.com]

I don't think the code applies to the rich text editor, as it doesn't use HTML. I suppose you could always type the majority of the post in the Rich Text editor, and then switch to the HTML editor for the usernames to attempt to stop any problems - I've done that on occasion (last night, for example!)

[deinonychus-1.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, might try that, it sounds like that's what i was doing wrong. I was annoyed and tired last night so couldn't be bothered faffing with it once I realised it hadn't worked.

[telperion-15.livejournal.com]

This is fun, trying to work out which one's which, and picking out my favourite ones! *g* Possibly that's not the intention of the meme...

[deinonychus-1.livejournal.com]

I was quite amused that two entirely separate fics both started with Connor running - either after or away from something!

Hmmm, we do all seem to be spending more time trying to 'guess the fic' rather than spotting patterns. Oh well, it's more fun that way.

[reggietate.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of Abby in there, that's one thing I've noticed. Possibly understandable, given that you like Connor a lot :-) Also, compared to mine, a lot more variety of characters in general.

I've written more in the past six months - and more fic that is complete, particularly - than quite possibly the last six years. One thing Primeval has done for me is make writing a pleasure again, rather than mostly a struggle.

[deinonychus-1.livejournal.com]

A lot of people have said that about Primveal, that they've written more Primeval fanfic since they got into the fandom than they have written anything else for ages. I wonder why that is? I know it's true for me as well, compared to what I was writing this time two years ago (pretty much a big fat nothing), and how much I've written since season 1 aired last year, it's a huge increase. For some reason I thought I'd written more recently this year though, which is why I was a little dissapointed at having to go back to March to get 25, when both Telperon and Luka had done 25 in the last two months.

As for the variety, yes, I have been writing quite a bit of Abby/Connor recently, and also a fair bit from Abby pov. I think Stephen snuck in accidentally, because I happened to start two of the chapters of the ficathon fic with him. He's probably the character that I write least these days.