1. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2017
    Messages:
    1,079
    Likes Received:
    1,724
    Location:
    Texas

    Worst Opening Sentence

    Discussion in 'Word games' started by Stormsong07, Nov 19, 2017.

    Anyone heard of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest?

    If you haven't, here's a little blurb from the website:
    Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. The contest (hereafter referred to as the BLFC) was the brainchild (or Rosemary’s baby) of Professor Scott Rice, whose graduate school excavations unearthed the source of the line “It was a dark and stormy night.” Sentenced to write a seminar paper on a minor Victorian novelist, he chose the man with the funny hyphenated name, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who was best known for perpetrating The Last Days of Pompeii, Eugene Aram, Rienzi, The Caxtons, The Coming Race, and – not least – Paul Clifford, whose famous opener has been plagiarized repeatedly by the cartoon beagle Snoopy. No less impressively, Lytton coined phrases that have become common parlance in our language: “the pen is mightier than the sword,” “the great unwashed,” and “the almighty dollar” (the latter from The Coming Race, now available from Broadview Press).

    It's based on this rather epically terrible opening line:
    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.” — Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)


    TL, DR: Compose the worst opening sentence everrrrr.

    I'll start- I submitted this gem to the contest last year but didn't win anything, but I still think it's amusing.

    Janet was three sheets to the wind- but not just any sheets in any wind, oh no, her sheets were the best Egyptian cotton money could buy, with a thread count of 1500 (in hot pink, of course), and her wind was the lightly-scented kind you got when it blows over the Royal Gardens on a spring morning in May- and as she sat at the bar cradling her cucumber martini, she rather blearily thought that the Grey Goose was eyeballing her in a way that a high class women such as herself did not deserve to be eyeballed.
     
    John-Wayne, jannert and Night Herald like this.
  2. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 10, 2017
    Messages:
    538
    Likes Received:
    531
    Location:
    Colorado
    Grandmama says not to eat no bugs 'cause it'll spoil my dinner, but Bobby says Grandmama's cookin' tastes like what the cows leave behind, so I think I'm better off.
     
  3. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2016
    Messages:
    1,107
    Likes Received:
    1,062

    It is a myth, 'It was a dark and stormy night'... is the worst introduction in English literature. That Lytton's florid prose should be treated so shabbily by literary critics and English Lit professors who possess no special talent for writing, is a perfect example of, 'Those who can, do; those who can't, teach'.

    What is it about those opening lines that make them any more tedious than Charles Dickens' rambling, purple tinted opening to, A Tale of Two Cities?

    • It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
     
    Radrook likes this.
  4. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 10, 2017
    Messages:
    538
    Likes Received:
    531
    Location:
    Colorado
    I was honestly wondering what the method to the madness was. I just pulled that sentence out of my ass.
     
  5. orangefire

    orangefire Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2017
    Messages:
    108
    Likes Received:
    118
    Bad opening sentences you say?

    The grass was green, its thin, bladelike leaves revealing that it was clearly a plant, but the sky was a blue color with several clouds in no specific shade worth noting, but the water, which was in front of me, was wet, like a liquid, and was sitting perfectly still, but the sun was bright and gave off light while being a sort of yellowish color.
     
    Radrook, Matt E, ixk and 4 others like this.
  6. Night Herald

    Night Herald The Fool Contributor

    Joined:
    May 23, 2012
    Messages:
    1,393
    Likes Received:
    2,621
    Location:
    Far out
    Oh, what fun, I love Bulwer-Lytton!

    It was a particularly, peculiarly hot May Day - not the panic phase (thought it was certainly a bit of that as well) but rather a day that happened to fall between May the first and May the thirty-first; as in, a day entirely enfolded and encapsulated by this month of May. It was, indeed, hot enough to mistake for a day in June, which, in some parts of the country - not this part, mind - grow significantly hotter, on average, than do those of a mere month before.
    It was on such a day, then, that Paula say in her landscaped garden, melting like a rubber duck, with no sustenance but for the ice cubes in her glass which were not melting quite quickly enough, this despite the heat. She smacked dry lips, knowing that if shade did not find her soon - she was entirely too comfortable and too molten to go in search of it - she would die.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2017
  7. Kenosha Kid

    Kenosha Kid Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2017
    Messages:
    163
    Likes Received:
    83
    The opening sentence to Solar Bones by Mike McCormack was pretty bad.

    I think the worst opening sentence I ever read was from a sci-fi book that I think was called something like The Myth Makers (but I might be conflating that with a Doctor Who serial). It was along the lines of "His name was Butch Gunnerson" but I can't remember what the actual name was either. If you read anything that starts with "His name was..." or "Her name was..." you've read at least one sentence too many.

    Meta-me goes with: "Dr. Malcolm Crowe didn't know he was dead, but he was." Worst novelisation of The Sixth Sense ever at any rate.
     
    Some Guy, jannert and Stormsong07 like this.
  8. Odile_Blud

    Odile_Blud Active Member

    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2017
    Messages:
    164
    Likes Received:
    134
    Hi, my name is Anna, and I woke up this morning on a bright and sunny day, got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror at my brown hair, green eyes, and skinny frame just before I went to the kitchen and started breakfast, thinking about how I'm just your average girl with average, boring looks (although everyone keeps reminding me how pretty I am) but I realized I left the stove on too long and my eggs were burning, so I ran to the kitchen, gray clouds of smoke itching my throat and watering my eyes, and then...I woke up.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2017
    John-Wayne, Some Guy, jannert and 5 others like this.
  9. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2015
    Messages:
    17,922
    Likes Received:
    27,173
    Location:
    Where cushions are comfy, and straps hold firm.
    Once upon a dark and stormy night, there was a man leaning against the old oak tree.
     
  10. SethLoki

    SethLoki Retired Autodidact Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2011
    Messages:
    1,566
    Likes Received:
    1,655
    Location:
    Manchester UK
    What? Oak trees are cliche now? A visit's required then to paragraph one of my WIP—shall put my young protag. on the branch of a gnarled...[really can't think of an alternative here] tree.

    What? (again) It was a good sentence, certainly not the worst sentence by any stretch, written in an age of innocence it was, a time when we had more time we did, a bygone time bereft social media, a generation on foot, no bandwagons nor gravy-trains to board, un-haunted by zeitgeists and ethereal twitter storms we were*.




    *and Yoda
     
    Some Guy, matwoolf and Iain Sparrow like this.
  11. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2015
    Messages:
    17,922
    Likes Received:
    27,173
    Location:
    Where cushions are comfy, and straps hold firm.
    To a minuscule degree (almost negligible) Oak Trees could be cliche. IDK.
    Just wrote the most simplistic thing I could think of, while use both cliches
    of "once upon a time" and "it was a dark and stormy night".

    There are many trees besides Oak. :)
    Here is a list of 50 Trees to pick from. :)
    http://bhort.bh.cornell.edu/tree/list.htm
     
  12. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2016
    Messages:
    1,107
    Likes Received:
    1,062

    I'm using, "giant elms" in my story, and maple trees too.
     
    Andrew Alvarez and Cave Troll like this.
  13. SethLoki

    SethLoki Retired Autodidact Contributor

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2011
    Messages:
    1,566
    Likes Received:
    1,655
    Location:
    Manchester UK
    Oak tree cliche: I think it's so when they're the old like you mentioned, or gnarled. Alternatives seem few as the set scene, being idyllic England, has said tree protruding from a field locked hedgerow and needing boughs that grow horizontal enough for MC boy to comfortably perch on—elm could work @Iain Sparrow.
     
    Some Guy and Cave Troll like this.
  14. Dreamsage

    Dreamsage Member

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2018
    Messages:
    59
    Likes Received:
    61
    It was a dark and stormy night. The dragon's steps thundered on the high tower's roof: the hero was clenching on its rough back, hoping for a miracle. He dared looking at the side, but his wise master's body just laid there, broken. The dark lord shot a spell to his black knight, who turned gigantic and leaned over them with a booming laughter, that made the old stones of the princess' cell shake.

    Are these enough cliches? :p
     
    jannert, matwoolf and Andrew Alvarez like this.
  15. soupcannon

    soupcannon Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2018
    Messages:
    120
    Likes Received:
    197
    Location:
    1. noun; the act or process of locating.
    I think this could be saved with just the right name.

    His name was Superflex Pudasto, and that had been his name for as long as he could remember, which was about six hours, now.


    No. I was wrong.
    This is awful and you're awful. Well done.
     
  16. Kenosha Kid

    Kenosha Kid Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2017
    Messages:
    163
    Likes Received:
    83
    @soupcannon - off-topic but I FREAKIN LOVE CARNIVAL OF SOULS!!!
     
    soupcannon likes this.
  17. soupcannon

    soupcannon Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2018
    Messages:
    120
    Likes Received:
    197
    Location:
    1. noun; the act or process of locating.
    The first time I saw it was at about 2am, alone in a hotel room next to the Winnipeg airport. All alone in the dark in an unfamiliar place is not the way to watch that movie. It has just the right levels of eeriness and WTF-ery to mess with your head in those conditions.

    My next Worst Opening Sentence:

    The Accuracy Internation AS50 sniper/anti-materiel rifle weighs 12.2kg and has a barrel length of 692mm, and has gas operated, direct impingement action, semi-automatic with a rate of 5 rounds per second and an effective range of 1,800m; and I had one in each hand and was going to make them all pay for murdering my girlfriend, and they would pay... with their lives!
     
  18. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2015
    Messages:
    17,922
    Likes Received:
    27,173
    Location:
    Where cushions are comfy, and straps hold firm.
    I am going to assume the aim here was to look badass while hitting jack shit? :p
     
    Some Guy and Andrew Alvarez like this.
  19. Andrew Alvarez

    Andrew Alvarez Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 6, 2018
    Messages:
    333
    Likes Received:
    252
    Location:
    South America
    This gave me dyslexia...
     
    Some Guy, jannert and Dreamsage like this.
  20. soupcannon

    soupcannon Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2018
    Messages:
    120
    Likes Received:
    197
    Location:
    1. noun; the act or process of locating.
    No, you misunderstand. Brock Savage is so strong that he can hold two of them at the same time. And since he's ambidextrous, he can fire them both. And since he's walleyed, he can aim at two locations simultaneously. And since he has all of the army training, including rangers and Green Beret and Marines, he is a master marksman with both hands.

    I may have played a lot of G.I. Joe as a kid.
     
  21. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2015
    Messages:
    17,922
    Likes Received:
    27,173
    Location:
    Where cushions are comfy, and straps hold firm.
    @soupcannon I didn't know G I Joe and Skeletor had a love child. Now I do.
     
    Some Guy and Dreamsage like this.
  22. O.M. Hillside

    O.M. Hillside Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2018
    Messages:
    292
    Likes Received:
    687
    For my upcoming novel: Dust of Cheetos

    So there I was in some place eating Cheetos; it was a wooden place and it lacked facilities with which to cleanse my fingers of the ensuing dust.
     
    Mumble Bee and Cave Troll like this.
  23. Methanogen

    Methanogen Member

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2018
    Messages:
    20
    Likes Received:
    25
    I woke up one day and stood up and walked and opened the door and closed the door and took a moment to admire my appearance, I was so beautiful with perfect hair and eyes but then I fall over because I do that all the time and I will then get up and start walking and make breakfast and eat it, I can taste it in my mouth it's bland but not that bad but bad and then I stare out the window because my life is so boring it's like there's nothing to do so I sigh as I ponder the meaning of life because I'm so deep but I'm interrupted by footsteps and I turn around and see my ugly, evil, aggressive, vile, abominable sister staring at me with piercing, vacant, daunting, pathetic eyes the colour that water turns when you drop a bunch of seaweed in it.
     
    Some Guy and jannert like this.
  24. soupcannon

    soupcannon Active Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2018
    Messages:
    120
    Likes Received:
    197
    Location:
    1. noun; the act or process of locating.
    For a moment, I thought you were James Fray.
     
  25. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2015
    Messages:
    17,922
    Likes Received:
    27,173
    Location:
    Where cushions are comfy, and straps hold firm.
    Twas a man with a fork, syrup, and a waffle. He was a hungry man at 4 a.m.
    His instant coffee was chunky, and reminded him of mud. Though he was
    grateful for anything considering he had been stranded on the moon 2 months
    ago.
     
    Some Guy and Dreamsage like this.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice