First Line Meme

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/2PXushW

*Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favourite authors! *

I was tagged by runawaymarbles https://tmblr.co/m9xrk_d3zf6dhbh3ayikf6g ages ago and have sort of dithered over this because gosh, every of my last 20 stories has been Witcher.

So I fear this will be monotonous, but, here we go. I also have really rather consciously avoided doing anything particularly artistic this past year because everything has been So Much, so. Let’s see whether there are patterns.

I don’t see a way not to make this punishingly long so I’ll cut here for length!

From most to least recent:

Decent Forage https://archiveofourown.org/works/30201588: It was cold enough that Eskel was keeping an eye out for this rain to turn to snow.

An Involved Process https://archiveofourown.org/works/28876890: Grinning, Ciri grabbed Geralt by the wrist and yanked, and he stumbled after her through several hundred miles of instantaneous nothing.

Under Torture https://archiveofourown.org/works/29217987: Yennefer wasn’t a cottage-in-the-woods kind of witch.

Dusty Corridors: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28276716 The revelation of what it felt like not to be in any pain from his eye came pretty close to flooring Aiden, but he managed to scrape himself back into an approximately human-shaped object in time to peer out the window as the mage left.

Learning Experiences https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121523: It wasn’t Geralt’s first year on the Path, but it was his first time coming back to Kaer Morhen.

Shorts https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297152: Geralt followed the sound of Ciri’s laughter through the house and out the back door.

Very Dark Magic https://archiveofourown.org/works/27993699: He spent a lot of his time in a kind of fog, unaware of the passage of time, unaware of his surroundings.

Trust https://archiveofourown.org/works/27919201: “Do you trust me?” Keira asked Lambert, and she had her hands behind her back for two reasons, maybe three– firstly, because then she wouldn’t twist them together and show her agitation, secondly, because that meant her chest was the frontmost part of her and the way she was dressed now meant her tits were on display for him to look at, so he would, because that was the shorthand they’d settled on about that, and thirdly because then maybe he’d think she was hiding something in her hands, something either dangerous or fun or maybe both, which was the thing she knew he liked most about her: she was both dangerous and fun.

A Delicate Hand https://archiveofourown.org/works/27578783: Keira had never lived domestically with someone like this before.

The Ideal Man https://archiveofourown.org/works/26847148: Lambert stood uneasily at the door of the tidy little farmhouse.

Embroidery https://archiveofourown.org/works/27436687: The library at Kaer Morhen was… not what Jaskier had hoped.

Aretuza Craftsmanship https://archiveofourown.org/works/26367553: Yennefer raised her eyes from her desk to look at the sorceress in her doorway.

What Mages Are Like: Geralt laughed at himself, finding he had sore muscles in his legs that made it hard to walk.

The Ancient Sea https://archiveofourown.org/works/22894186: Even though Ciri understood why Jaskier had left them, it took her a long time to forgive him, in her heart.

Fugitive: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670274 The last time Geralt had been to this city, some twenty years before, there had been an extremely good herbalist with a shop on the high street.

Dangerous Comforts: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24038059 “Again,” Vesemir said, pretending impatience, though he was actually fairly pleased; clearly, Eskel had overcome another developmental plateau in settling into his new mutations, and the gangly teenager set his jaw in determination and repeated the exercise, with even better proficiency.

Forty: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23769433 “So he’s forty now,” Eskel said, and Geralt didn’t startle because he’d smelled that Eskel was or had been in this room, but it was a near thing; he really hadn’t been expecting Eskel to be standing behind the door as it swung shut.

Little Fishie https://archiveofourown.org/works/22956328: Geralt really hadn’t expected to ever see the bard again, after the misadventure with the elves.

Warmth https://archiveofourown.org/works/22922326: He’d almost left it too late to get through the pass to Kaer Morhen, but the snow held off until he was nearly there, and he only had to fight through it for the last couple of miles.

Innermost Depths https://archiveofourown.org/works/22847020: Yawning, Jaskier put the collection of books and papers into the drawer, closed and locked it, and, rubbing his face, shuffled out of the room and down the hall to wash his face and go to bed.

As I was assembling this I was like “ah, I never open on dialogue,” but then I did several times. I sometimes seem to declare a thing, and sometimes I have a concrete action– I don’t seem to open up right in the middle of action sequences very much, I could try that a bit. It does almost feel a little unfair, as all of these stories are from the same series and so tend to pick up one from another a fair amount, so they all start more in medias res than they would if they were all standalones. Which– isn’t that what they tell you in writing school? Don’t have long introductions? I know I was given the advice to start writing a thing, and then on the first editing pass chop off as much of the beginning as possible. But like all writing advice, sometimes I follow it and sometimes I don’t. I feel like a lot of very good classic fantasy literature starts with establishing statements; I’m like, spiritually ripping off in a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit with my Yennefer wasn’t a cottage-in-the-woods kind of witch even if mine’s got training wheels on because if you’re reading this you already knew that.

Anyway I don’t see any patterns (except that fics featuring Yennefer often start with her name, which is funny and suitable) but I also don’t see anything I’m particularly ashamed of, LOL. Overall i’m largely pleased with the actual craft bits of my writing, it’s just the decisions about it that make me tear my hair out. (Let’s not talk about how long I spent last night tabbing between windows trying to figure out what to work on next. It is killing me not to have a backlog to post from, I could really use a pick-me-up today, but– instead, here is my back catalogue.

No, I don’t have a favorite, I don’t think. I’m probably the most attached to Trust, because I wrote that wildly out of order from how I posted it, and had to do a great deal of editing and didn’t have the heart to cut it down as much as it deserved. I think that one could’ve been a really great story if I’d made it much tauter, but I did not have the capacity at that point, and I still rather like it.

(I also have a weakness for Shorts because it’s such a weird little oddball that doesn’t fit with anything but is just a part of a thing I wrote a bunch for and haven’t been able to make into a thing.)

Hoo boy I was tagged so long ago I don’t remember who else has already been tagged. I am doing my usual cop-out and saying I want you, yes you, to consider yourself tagged if you have any number of works to compare, whether it’s five or the full twenty which honestly is kind of a lot. Please tag me when you respond though, I have been having horrible trouble getting through my dash lately. (Your picture was not posted)