somewhere in a burst of glory, a sound becomes a song

hrmpf. Taking a page from the likes of alara_r and looking at first lines. I did -- when Punk and I write together, she always starts and ends things. Sometimes I start things. She always ends things. It's because of Larry, Big Finish Larry, and sometimes our characters BFL without our permission. persimmons. Gene Simmons. Gene Shay, who owes me an e-mail.

Here's what I did in XF:

John Cotton in "Bless the Beasts and Children" had the right initials
and I wish I had something to read.

from Chronicle of a Life Foretold, the first installment in my Mulder-Messiah five-part wossname. I like this line. I actually like all the first lines of all the stories in that series, from back in the day when I was, ahem, more "Sabby" than I am now. I've distilled a bit since XF, grown less obtuse and more spare. For the most part, a good step, but I do miss some of my first lines. Like, here's an opening from another story in that post-Amor Fati series, Sin:

My goldfish are dead.

Twelve bananas spoil the minute they cross the threshold into my house.
I never had a fichus, even the cactus Scully gave me once died within
days, its cheap little defense of prickers was no match for the pall
that surrounds me like the aura I once had a fortuneteller read;
everything I touch dies. In my refrigerator there are two styrofoam
takeout boxes that have been there since the dawn of time; I don't know
what's in them; I'm afraid to move them; I don't even open the
refrigerator anymore; I eat out. The goldfish are a test, were a test,
like the dove in the mineshaft I figured they'd warn me; they have
warned me. Don’t come near me, the clock is ticking, I am cancerous,
I'm a black hole. I can't even manage to feel bad for the poor, dumb
fish, but now, like Death on a Harley I'm speeding into town, hide your
daughters, cover your ears, dust is kicking up and armageddon begins.

See, Sabby. Psychotic. but a little something. you know, poor Mulder! It worked for X-Files, anyway. Wouldn't work for SN or WW. I might be able to revive it for Farscape.

Then there's this:

With the pink tip of her small pink tongue she lifts a bit of potato
chip from the heel of her hand.

from Body Parts which I just find very sunny and cute and cheerful. It's a whole different tiny pink Scully.

As opposed to, say:

"It's a nice place," she said, though she had no idea if that was true and really wasn't
paying attention.

from Some Books About Crooks which is grownup Scully and feels somewhat illicit already. Because right off we know she's not dealing with Mulder, it's not familiar, and she's playing some sort of game.

But anyway, you can see how it gets less Sabby and more straightforward.

Then there was the West Wing:

In the summer of 1970, Uncle Roger, who wasn't Jewish, bought the first Chevy
Suburban in Connecticut.

from The Largest Colonial Building in the World and one of my favorites. because dude, so much information there! facts and details and things. Which is obviously (always) a defense mechanism, and one of my favorite ones. Especially for Josh. Scully too sometimes. Casey maybe. Aeryn. Anyway.

But then there's:

On sunny, breezy, pants-wearing spring days, Sam likes to throw open his office
windows and listen to musical theatre.

from Boy which is just supergay. Hence the epithet "as gay as Sam." Fortunately it's canon that the boy listens to musicals, and I'm especially fond of this opening sentence because it's got weather and pants in. Sets a nice, breezy, pants-y sort of gay tone, no?

When I wrote about Bonnie, she was pretty much a blank slate, basically an original character, so I had all sorts of room to define her, and I needed to do so, kapow, from the first sentence.

Bonnie gave me this:


The last time Devon had left, when the heat was record-breaking even for August and the radio wouldn't stop playing that one unintelligible Chili Peppers song, Bonnie hadn't been able to write for two months.

from Coming Back from the War. Mainly because I knew she was a writer and I knew she had a boyfriend, and I knew that those things were entangled some way.

Hmm, and then some odds and ends I'm fond of:

Trinnie brought a two-piece bathing suit to Greece, but she never wears it.

from Home, ST:VOY. Because it's always compelling to start Trek stories on Earth. Plus introducing a new character as if we've known her all along is powerful, I think. in a let's-read-on sort of way. No? Same with Bonnie and Devon above, really.

The most effective method of shipping Class Silpha semi-hazardous materials is through the Elegorous belt, along the retired Cal-Katha freight lines.

from the Jool vignette, Farscape. Just 'cause, why not, right? I'm fond of first sentences that have nothing to do with anything. Or everything to do with everything.

Lennier isn't great, but he's not bad:

Flat on his chest and his chin dug into his forearm, not so young anymore, not so strong, not built for this, he thought, and his back hurt. Too long since he'd been in a module like this. Long enough since he'd gone this way, back home.

from Education. I'm still practicing with Lennier, and I'm very fond of the opener to my new Slashy Space Epic, but you can't see that yet. *g* This one was just a false start. But it doesn't suck.

And then, of course, things that DO suck:

Sam and Annika fit like a yin and a yang in the chilly Amtrak
vestibule, his back against one wall, her back against the other,
her arm draped over his shins and her sneakers squeaking on the
pitted metal by his head.

from Waiting for the Big Boom. Punk told me to delete it. I should have listened. I like the squeaking sneakers but the rest -- I'm just trying too hard.

The red and yellow of headlights and the red-pink of flares lit patches of
snow that flickered like shadowpuppets across his window. The power had
gone out.

from Where Have You Gone, Tom Glavine?. Possibly my favorite story of mine. But that opening line does nothing for me. I needed to get in there with Dan's socks and piles of scripts right off the bat. Who cares about the power outage and the snow? Feh.

He awoke with a start and was sure he'd been asleep for days. His watch read
9:41, but it was dark outside and he wasn't sure if that meant 9:41
Wednesday night or 9:41 Thursday night or even 9:41 p.m. Friday.

from Something is Wrong. First of all -- "he awoke with a start"?! Oh, forgive me, muse. and then the rest is just too wordy. But I can forgive myself because it was back in my Sabby salad days, tossing words around like confetti. That and the fact that this entire story isn't so good. So I can write it off point-blank. Unlike poor Tom Glavine, up there.

my hand hurts. I'm hungry. I have to think more. There's a lot more that sucks. And probably more that I like. and listen to everything pene says about runPunk. And so on.

At least I like the opening paragraph for Lennier.

it was another working day in Canada

ends are for...what? Because we can feel them, rhythmically [BFL, BFL]. They punch in a way openers don't. I'm better at endings, though sometimes they come along at inopportune times. In a perfect world?

the reader pauses, hand on mouse. Doesn't click away. Doesn't let go, yet. Savors. feels her heart beat. Smiles, or not. Shivers, or not. For a second, before she shakes her head and reenters the world.

For that reason, I think endings should come about five seconds too early. So the reader scrolls a little, looking for the rest. Mouse clicks at the bottom of the page, and then that heartbeat thing.

In other words, we're still searching for the best BFL ever, though PV and I do have pages and pages of outtakes worth. These below are my favorites of mine - can't say about the heartbeat or the scrolling, of course. But.

Closing lines, courtesy of Big Finish Larry (not to be confused with Big Finnish Larry, the pale-eyed blond bouncer with biceps the size of watermelons and a fisherman's sweater Jo once removed with her teeth, but that's another story):

X-Files

My favorite closer ever. And still the story itself is unimpressive, but I've tried to crib this last line for everything I've written since. From "Everybody Having a Good Time."

It was another working day in Canada.

I'm also fond of the ending for "Body Parts." It's such a strange little story with shoes and potato chips and pocket change. I keep forgetting I wrote it. But it's got this nifty little closer:

They're always somewhere, separately. Alone they dwell on the way
they've grown, faces changed for the miles and years. Together they
fit, complement, step in time, step in time. Together the standards
change. Separately they linger, pretending they don't feel the
difference in the space of their bodies when they part.

And look at how triumphant this is, from "Rain and the Mistaken Messiah." Maybe out of character, and so oddly triumphant for Sab, but kinda nice?

"I love you," she said. And whirling on her heel, leaving him in the
doorway grinning stupidly, brilliantly, beautifully, she went home.

Embarrassingly triumphant, actually. can't you hear the rimshot? *g*

West Wing

I tried a thing, in "Coming Back from the War" where I quit midsentence. Because it was supposed to be about momentum picking up, and also about writing. Dunno if it worked, but *I* liked it. The last line of that story:

"Hey, Bonnie!" Sam said, waving both hands. "Write this down --"

So, a secret. "VC-25A" is in CJpov, though very few people know that. *g* Punk and I like to joke that 3rd-O is "CJ pov," because that's about what it amounted too. Still, when we started the story, we knew it would all take place in one room (didn't we? or did I make that up? I know we made up the room...) and we knew it would end when CJ left. Therefore:

And then she left too.

Badum-bump.

Speaking of tooooo BFL-y, the end of "Out Here in the Fields" was me going a bit overboard. It's, like, the jazz hands! of Big Finishes. Sort of fits the mood, I guess, but it's a bit too swelly for my taste:

Because these guys are his friends again. And the Governor's gonna get Hoynes,
and the campaign, with all the magic of a ninth-inning rally, is back on its feet.

And they're gonna take this show on the road.

Annnnnd, the curtain goes down! See. *g*

Sports Night

And sometimes the last line is like a punchline, right? which is also embarrassing, like when you know you've built up to that last line, here's the payoff, crowd-pleaser. Still, I swear to god, I didn't realize this until I got to the end of Euskadi Six Hour. I swear! Ask Punk.

Later, he would learn that Dan had gone off to meet and fuck a woman named
Roberta Bernstein, who would grow up into Bobbi Bernstein and pinch-hit on
Sports Night. He'd learn that Dan couldn't remember any of it, except vaguely that
he'd had a drunken night in France.

And that was fine with Casey, all of it, the fact that Dan didn't remember that
drunken tumble long ago. And the fact that Casey'd left it behind too, even though
he'd had one hell of a time. It was all in the past, and it was all okay.

Because Casey had never been to France.

And, um, dude? what the hell was I talking about when I thought the end of R&MM was too triumphant for me? ALL my last lines are triumphant. I think I'm hooked on ending on these notes of false hope. Check this out, we'll call this the

Notes of False Hope Montage

Some last lines:

He was Casey McCall. He'd beaten the Cut Man. So fuck 'em all. Bring it on.

from "Pretty Life." because I wasn't sure if it was clear enough that Casey was lying to himself. Was it?

In the dark parts of his brain, the sun comes up over the beach, seashells washed up from the surf and all the sand bleached white after the rainstorm. Harvey's deep in his paperback, and Crichton walks along the coast and lets the cold salty water bite at his ankles. Aeryn's there too, red bikini and a pulse pistol at her side and she splashes him with seawater and sand, laughs as she tackles him to the ground.

from "A new device is being tested," Farscape. Crichton, lying to himself. Hmmm.

Ndube grinned. He'd been waiting for that. "Scorpius," he said, and he liked the taste of his new name on his tongue. And then he left, because he had work to do.

from "Rolling," Farscape. Scorpius and his note of false hope. banging head on desk. I'm so fucking predictable!

No, she thinks. I belong right here, landing perfect marks and sleeping with the professor. Interning with the top xenomedical facility in Saulas. They don't all think so -- she looks at her classmates, they squirm and sneeze -- but Reva Calloram Dibbuk Jennai knows, and that's all that matters. She knows economics, she knows what currency will buy. And she's got plenty of it.

from the Jool vignette. ah, MAN.

She has made a home for them somewhere, and every morning when the sun rises he will see her face and it will make sense. And at night, when the stars are out, he will not sleep alone.

from "Home," ST:VOY. Fuck me. I'm gonna cry. Poor Chakotay, though.

I will drink water at the bar, and watch as Ivanova and Garibaldi exchange curses about Nightwatch. Perhaps Vir will come down. I'll buy him a drink. And then I'll go to sleep, because tomorrow is the first day after, and there's work to do, and I am here to serve Delenn.

from "All Love is Unrequited," B5. Okay, these ALL look the same.

Why didn't you TELL MEEEEEEEE?

I need a drink. seriously. I'm gonna go home. And drink. Heavily. Fuck me, it looks like I *did* crib from it all along!

and it was another working day in Canada.