#it's only a period here to better reflect the specific way Joey speaks. But for all intents and purposes it's one single line

[ziracona]

@rabbit-exe tagged me to post the first line of 10 (posted) fics and see if there was a pattern.

1. My name is Philip Ojomo.

2. I see something leaving the big house.

3. Quiet. Easy. Gotta get real close so they know even with that skin, it’s a kill shot.

4. *Static Crackle*

5. This was always fun. Fucking with Herman.

6. Michael had been waiting.

7. Die, you piece of shit, thought Quentin, back hitting brick and cement as he took his last step backwards and ran out of places to go.

8. Sole stood up slowly and surveyed the skyline.

9. It’s quiet.

10. The shot hit both of them so hard, they went sixty feet and through the glass side of the next building over before realizing it had happened.

These are, in order, In Living Memory, Apples and Something, Days Gone 2, On Deaf Ears, Not that Kind of Person Who, Isolation, Half-Life, The Nuclear Reaction, Almost Gone, and The Sum of Our Parts. Not all are finished, but all have had at least one chapter posted.

While it feels weird to cut out The Kid and New Dawn Fades when they're two of the three I'm most actively writing, I picked 14 originally, and noticed the pattern was that I tend to establish Mood, Mode, and Voice immediately, and those two were the least distinct examples, because both begin with the character in the scene with the POV character speaking first, so you actually get the tone set from the second line. I thought about subbing Signifying Nothing for On Deaf Ears, because it's a strong example of Tone, but ODE has the single most distinct Mode of any fic, so I kept it this way.

I knew already I often choose not to name my speaker by name immediately, if I have a reason not to, but I do announce their way of speaking as quickly as possible regardless, so their voice will be recognizable. I also use a lot of intentionally odd ways of typing narration (Apples and Something being the strongest example), to reflect how that person speaks and thinks. Probably though, the most important of the 3 is establishing a tone for the reader to take to the scene. IE clearly The Sum of Our Parts, Days Gone 2, and Half-Life begin in-media-res, whereas In Living Memory, Almost Gone, or Isolation are not introducing action, and going to be introducing their content slower and in a more thoughtful way. Apples and Something, Not That Kind of Person Who, and The Nuclear Reaction are in the middle of something, but not something of a crucial level of intensity, so you're going to get more context than action as they begin to take off. I think it's fun to do this, because it helps people know what kind of genre they're opening up since they aren't at a book store, and also whether or not they're interested in the type of action about to go on, right away.

Tagging @allexiaah @tathracyn if they want to do this as well, although take this as an open invitation as well if you write and want to--I just know both of them write. ^u^