Baaaah: opening lines meme

[julesjones]

Gacked from sallymn and others. "Post the first lines from your last 20 stories. Do you see any patterns?

Um, yes. Is that last 20 by date published, by date started, or by date finished? For these do not necessarily correspond, at least not with my stories. I've got WnotIP dating back ten years... Anyway, on to the first lines, which I am taking to mean "first sentence". And I'm going to cheat and make some of them "first paragraph". :-)


Jack frowned at the mirror. He'd been _good_ at this, once. Once, twice, three times, and no doubt more times yet to come. His personal timeline looked like the product of a four year old learning to knit.
-- Torchwood fanfic WIP

_Oh hell, I'm fifty._
-- Opening chapter of a potential new novel in the Lord and Master series.

"Bad luck, boss, there's a queue even on the first class check-in counter."
-- "Flight of Dreams", a short story in the Lord and Master series.

And the next three are Lord and Master as well. Let's skip those, and get onto what I was writing before the move.

Monday was a bloody awful day to have a migraine. Didn't matter what you said, there'd always be some pillock going on about oh yeah, Monday morning hangover.
-- Taxman, urban fantasy WnotIP

A kick woke Briar. He hadn't meant to doze off, but exhaustion had overcome caution.
-- untitled science fantasy WnotIP

"John, I think we need to talk about your rent for next month."
-- "Black Leather Rose", in the novelette version published by Loose Id (there are also two different short story versions of it, neither of which is currently available).

Morcant tucked the rope through the last loop, and pulled it tight before standing back to admire the effect.
-- opening scene of Buildup 3, a W very much not IP.

“I think you should seriously consider finding a job somewhere else.”
-- Lord and Master, the first novel in the series.

It was a cold, damp day when I went to meet Jan off the train, one of those days when you wonder if the calendar had reversed and started heading back to winter.
-- untitled novelette Alex and I started a couple of years ago and never got around to finishing. I should poke her about it, because it was actually quite good.

Allard woke up, stretched and turned over. This turned out to be quite a good thing, because the first thing he saw was his husband.
-- opening scene of the honeymoon story in the Syndicate series, which we also never finished, and now probably never will.

Martin switched off the boat's engine and sat back in contentment, master of all he surveyed. Not really, of course, but it was a pleasant daydream, and this early in the year it was an easy illusion to sustain. There were few boats out on the water, and all of those working boats. This pleasant little cove was empty of any human life save himself, and the only boat visible on the open sea was a distant dot near the horizon.
-- Dolphin Dreams, shapeshifter m/m/m menage romance

Now, it has to be said that a great deal of whisky had been consumed in that house on that New Year's Eve before it ever got to midnight, and perhaps that could be seen as an excuse for all that followed. Then again, perhaps things might have gone worse had it not so happened that a writers' group decided to take a large and remote house in the Lake District over the New Year's holiday, with a writing workshop as the nominal excuse for having a really good party with a bunch of like-minded friends.
-- First Footer, sf romance

All villages have secrets, but some secrets are more important than others. Sometimes there really is something to be kept hidden from outsiders at all costs. And sometimes the secret slips out anyway. I should know; I was the outsider for one such secret. So there’ll be no real names or locations in this story, because it’s an oral history for the people it concerns. And if none of them are left to hear it, well, then there’ll be none left to be harmed by its telling elsewhere.
Spindrift 2 -- Ship to Shore, paranormal romance about a silkie and a human

The beer was green. Allard stared at it in disapproval.
-- The Syndicate: Four Leaf Clover. Another written with Alex.

There’s a village I live in for part of the year, one of those small villages where everyone knows everyone else _and_ their genealogy, or so it seems. I’m not such a fool as to think that I’ve been accepted by the locals as one of them, but at least I’ve been classed as a useful resident rather than as a damned nuisance tourist -- or worse, a weekender. I’d rather keep that designation, so I’ll not be naming the village in question.
-- Spindrift

"This is a smear job and you know it!"
-- Buildup 2: Pulling Strings

"We surrender!"
-- Buildup 1: Mindscan


I can't really see much in there, other than I have an unfortunate liking for one sentence opening paragraphs and spent too much of my childhood reading mythology books...

Comments

[growlycub.livejournal.com]

Squee! :) And fifty's the new 30 anyway! :)

[tharain.livejournal.com]

The beer was green. Allard stared at it in disapproval.

LOVE that one particularly. =-D

And I can't do this one, because I don't HAVE 20 stories!

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

His personal timeline looked like the product of a four year old learning to knit.

{chortle}