This was an idea I got from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/about.html), which challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. Something along the lines of: “It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.” (from the BLFC web site) Can you match that?
Our story starts off in a fair little farm in the fields of 1830s England. There a little orphaned boy named Shaun Baker toils in the heat under the service of his cruel caretaker, Miss Alice. Wetherby. The boy himself is ten, pale, scrawny to the bones with tattered, patch-worked clothing much too big for him. He works day in and day out in the barn, hobbling around on a twisted brown crutch for his left foot was twisted inward, a birth defect that gave him no end of mockery from the matron and the children of the nearby hamlet. Yet despite all that, his heart is pure as a golden jay, he is a goodly, kind-hearted, compassionate child. He never once imagines inflicting harmful action upon his cruel matron, or fantasizing monsters from other worlds suddenly invading the farm to terrorize his cruel matron. Indeed, he would instead sing his troubles away to the farm animals, one of whom is a horse he so adores. He named her Molly, from his mother who died along with his father to a gruesome axe murder that was, unfortunately, never solved. All he has to remember his parents by is a locket that he wore around his neck, a locket which he makes sure to never, ever, let Miss Alice discover. But one day, he shall make a discovery of a sword once thought lost to legend, a sword that will guide him to his eventual destiny. It all starts out... ~*~ How was that?
Hello, I am Todd. Todd Wasniewski. I have had a long and happy life. Nothing eventful ever really happened in my life. And not as I approach the end of it, I want to share with you all, what I did right in my life that kept it so quiet and uneventful. How is that?
"A dark path. Screams. Something dipping at my back. I've touched a slimy wall, or at last it was my fingers tell me. I'm a warrior, dragon-born, half human and half elf, trying to escape the prision of the Orc city."
Well you see, what we got going here is gonna be good, but you have to Jimmy up for it, hear? It's some of that literary shit, so you have to kinda sift around until you get comfy. But I'll be good to ya, there's probably a car chase, but we'll see about that, I don't wanta exactly spoil the stuff, but I wanna make it so good not one single phrase can ruin it, get me? Like the writing hits you so hard, wow, there it goes. Moves you. That make sense?
He began his 3-hour long speech on evolutionary game theory as seen in behavioral differences among the spider Agelenopsis aperta.
I was sitting by the riverbank with my feet slightly in the water and my toes shriveled like prunes but my ankles burnt red from the sun baking the evergreen moors of the pristine estate that my old uncle Vern called 'shit.'
You were doing fine, till you got to "...the pristine estate that my old uncle Vern called 'shit.'" There you veered off into pretty damn good territory again. You must work harder on reining in your genius, if you plan to succeed on this thread.
Because the light had been turned off and it was still night the room was dark but not very quiet because Puggles, the old Labradoodle purchased from a crippled street vendor in the town square, was snoring on the foot of the comfortable bed.
Ach, you're getting the idea now. Still not as bad as it could be, though. You've still to master the appalling grammar and awkward sentence structure that would enhance this stunning scene. Mind you, your 'crippled street' image is noteworthy.
Hat at the ready, Johnny wasn't going to be kicking any ass and or taking any names until after he was back in the womb.
over white ivories musical tendrils hovered, and from each white asparagus tip of skin the drips of my own perspiration turned rivulet, turned an ocean of sweat glistening a conspiracy with the lacquer soaked stool above which I, young Kim, held the passion of the ancestors in my teeth, limbering for sonic combat in this the preliminary round of young musician of the year. nearly
Too interesting, eh? Okay, this should do the trick: He began his 3-hour long speech on evolutionary game theory as seen in behavioral differences among the spider Agelenopsis aperta. But first, he decided to tell all of his favorite spider jokes. "What do you call two recently married spiders? Newly webs!"
