#firstlines — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #firstlines, aggregated by home.social.
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"The main thing to remember in autobiography, I have always thought, is not to let any damned modesty creep in to spoil the story. This adventure is mine, Albert Campion's, and I am fairly certain that I was pretty nearly brilliant in it in spite of the fact that I so nearly got myself and old Lugg killed that I hear a harp quintet whenever I consider it."
Opening paragraph of The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham
#books #MargeryAllingham #Campion #FirstLines #OpeningLines -
"The main thing to remember in autobiography, I have always thought, is not to let any damned modesty creep in to spoil the story. This adventure is mine, Albert Campion's, and I am fairly certain that I was pretty nearly brilliant in it in spite of the fact that I so nearly got myself and old Lugg killed that I hear a harp quintet whenever I consider it."
Opening paragraph of The Case of the Late Pig by Margery Allingham
#books #MargeryAllingham #Campion #FirstLines #OpeningLines -
"An unassuming young man was travelling, in midsummer, from his native city of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the Canton of the Grisons, on a three weeks' visit."
-- Thomas Mann, *The Magic Mountain*
(welp, I guess I'm reading this now -- reading notes will go here)
#FirstLines #ReadingNotes #NowReading #Bookstodon #ThomasMann #TheMagicMountain
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"That very day, I left the orphanage. I packed a knapsack with my clothes. I slid the coins they'd given me into a soft pocket. I looked out at a rusty gate, which was topped with tree branches, and one looked like a wolf's wig."
-- #FirstLines from *Gwenda, Rodney* by Olivia Cronk
https://meeklingpress.com/gwenda-rodney/
(This is the start of my reading notes thread for this book.)
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@markmcelroy "When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished, they say."
#FirstLines -
Great first lines
"It started when I was cleaning dishes
And the phone rang in the hall"
#music #FirstLines -
#firstlines are very important, of course, but what about last lines? Got any favourites, from your own work or others'?
This is my current WIP, a parting between two characters who've been through quite a lot together but now don't know if they'll ever see ecah other again. (To them, at this moment, it looks unlikely, but I'm the author and I'm reserving judgement.) -
What, no @GreatDismal ? I am shocked.
"They didn’t think Flynne’s brother had PTSD, but that sometimes the haptics glitched him." (The Peripheral)
Or
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel" (Neuormancer)
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"Survival: 'Well, Ace,' said the Doctor, 'I never thought it would end like this. You give the Master this can of Wiskas while I empty out his litter tray.'" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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'Terror of the Vervoids: 'Oh no, Doctor - what are those things?', 'I don't know, Mel, but I'm going to be very careful describing them let me tell you.'" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"The Twin Dilemma: 'In his fifth incarnation, the Doctor had a pleasant open face. Now in his sixth, it had been replaced with an unpleasant open mouth.'" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"Time-Flight: ‘Kalid looked into the milky whiteness of the globe, and didn’t look anything like Anthony Ainley after a questionable decision to cosplay Charlie Chan.’” #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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“The Reign of Terror: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: Musk had lost billions, but no-one could log on to the internet any more.’” #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"The Deadly Assassin: 'Hey Mary Whitehouse: f*ck you!'" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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“Invasion of Time: 'There it is, Leela, Gallifrey. My home planet. Home of the Time Lords. If you ever meet a woman called Sarah-Jane Smith, DO NOT tell her I let you come here.’” #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"Trial of a Time-Lord: Mind-Warp - Peri sighed as the TARDIS landed on another unknown world, in another unknown galaxy. You know what, she thought, I'm tired of being able to travel anywhere in apace and time, of excitement and adventure. What I really want is to spend the rest of my life being bellowed at by a man with the loudest voice in the universe." #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"Timewyrm: Genesis - 'Ace breasted boobily into the TARDIS console room, wearing nothing but her bra and knickers. "Oy, Professor: how the c**ting f*ck do you pronounce 'wyrm'?" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"Dalek Invasion of Earth: 'As he saw the sign reading DO NOT THROW BODIES INTO THE RIVER, the Doctor realised that whatever period of history the Ship had brought them to this time, the Tories were still in power." #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"Planet of the Daleks: 'Hi, Terry Nation here. Enclosed is a copy of the scripts for The Daleks - can I leave it to you to go through and rename one of the characters Tarrant?'" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"Resurrection of the Daleks: 'Hang on, Doctor,' said Ace. 'Are you quite sure that one's dead?'" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"This is for Remembrance of the Daleks. ‘Ace’, said the Doctor. 'Do you remember the Daleks?'" #DoctorWho #FirstLines
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"We turn now to a round called #FirstLines. #DoctorWho episodes have been novelised since the nineteen sixties, and authors of the ranges often made changes to improve the stories from the television versions: when Time and the Rani was novelised, for example, Pip and Jane Baker submitted a copy of Doctor Who and the Ark in Space by Ian Marter instead.”
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I have discovered the greatest first lines ever written, from the start of “The Journal of a Disappointed Man” by B.F. Cummings:
“January 3.
Am writing an essay on the life-history of insects and have abandoned the idea of writing on ‘How Cats Spend their Time’.”
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#FirstLines What are your favorite first lines in a #novel ? " The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind. In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of spring…. I return link by link along the iron chains of memory to the city which we inhabited so briefly together: the city which used us as its flora — precipitated in us conflicts which were hers and which we mistook for our own: beloved Alexandria! ..
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13033.The_Alexandria_Quartet #TheAlexandriaQuartet by #LawrenceDurrell -
Hello fellow book lovers. Think you know your Austen from your Asimov? Your Tolstoy from your Tartt? 🤔 Then come and try our opening lines quiz at https://grumpyoldbooks.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-opening-lines-quiz.html?m=1
#quiz #Books #BookQuiz #bookstodon #booksofmastodon #OpeningLines #FirstLines -
Three SFF Opening Lines and Why They’re Intriguing
I’m excited to share with you this new series for 2021! It focuses on the all-important first line of a novel; the sentence that shapes the tone and very essence of the novel that follows those words. While a first line doesn’t have to shock you to your core, it should intrigue you enough to want to keep
http://lunastationquarterly.com/three-sff-opening-lines-and-why-theyre-intriguing/