Worst Opening Sentence

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

  1. Dreamsage

    Dreamsage Member

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    Actually, I'd read that.
     
  2. Domino355

    Domino355 Senior Member

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    For a mysterymnovel.
    John Begone was muredered last night by Eric Goodman.
     
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  3. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yes. THAT is bad. Well done.

    It's easy to pick fault with stories that were written in another era for an audience that admired long, convoluted sentences and enjoyed reading them and/or hearing them read out loud. (Dickens was an extremely popular author, and A Tale of Two Cities was a popular story.) If you can get over the use of semicolons, slow down and actually READ the sentences, and pay attention to what they're saying you'll likely find them both informative and absorbing. I don't consider either the 'dark and stormy night' excerpt OR the 'best of times worst of time' openings to be bad at all. They are just out of fashion, but I would certainly want to carry on reading. In fact, I have read A Tale of Two Cities several times, and not as a school assignment, either.

    But this more contemporary offering of yours carries an aura of a writer who is trying hard to cover all the bases, without actually giving us anything to either imagine or think about, doesn't it? It's just banal and wishy-washy.
     
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  4. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, yes. That is truly awful.
     
  5. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Oooh, well done. That's total crap, isn't it? I'm enjoying this....
     
  6. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Depends on the next sentence, doesn't it? That actually might be a great opener ...although muredered might be arrested by the spell checker at some point.
     
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  7. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    This one starts out fine, then dribbles down the chin:

    A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough; but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile of an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world.

    —Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel
     
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  8. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    I've read it ten times now, and I cannot make head nor tail of it. What in the hell is he saying? Is it that a character in the story has come from Epsom to a Dutch enclave in Pennsylvania? (Epsom is the sort of village you tramp through on the way to somewhere you'd actually like to visit, and furthermore, it would only be known to perhaps one in a thousand readers!)
    And what in the heck is a coral cry?.. or for that matter, a soft stone smile?! I love juxtaposing allusions... but soft stone is a bit crude! The last stretch of words are beautifully done; but you look back over your shoulder at the rambling sentence before it, and wonder how it came to such a nice end.
     
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  9. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I'm still scratching my head over the middle bit.

    Having said that, Look Homeward, Angel is a bestseller classic, so he must have done something right. Maybe it all snaps into focus in Sentence Two?
     
  10. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    The character being introduced (in a clumsy way; this was Wolfe's first book and as such is very self-indulgent; give him a chance and the style settles down) is a stonecutter. He carves headstones for graves. The soft stone smile is the smile on the face of the angel he carves. Now re-examine coral cry, while picturing a carved rooster...
     
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  11. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Well, that's a relief. I'll be able to sleep tonight after all... :bigconfused:
     
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  12. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    Godzilla sat down on the Golden bridge to contemplate why he was so mad all the time.

    Call me Moby Dick on account of I bite off some fellers leg, worst meal ever, and he's been following me ever since.
     
  13. Cave Troll

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

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    Sounds like a love/hate M/M Rom-Thriller. :p
     
  14. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    I think this post needs to be moved to some sort of horror story thread?
     
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  15. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Excellent. Especially Moby. Ha ha! I'd read both of these.
     
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  16. Mumble Bee

    Mumble Bee Keep writing. Contributor

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    In all my years of planning, watching movies and T.V. shows to see how everyone else 'got it wrong' somehow the smell of a dead body had totally slipped my mind as I tried to wheel old Mrs. Jenkins out of the hotel.
     
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  17. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    Oh I understood the angel to be a statue of some kind, though I wasn't thinking grave stones. And I still don't get coral cry, nor Altamont either, especially how the word is being used. It's a place, I assume.
     
  18. Amontillado

    Amontillado Senior Member

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    That should have been a prize-winner. I don't know if I'm more impressed by the reference to sheets as pieces of cloth, which they are not aboard a sailing vessel, or the gentle description of her lightly scented wind.

    I believe it is the wind, actually, as much as I love sailing. The sense of smell is awakened, and what reader would not imagine the music, as well?
     
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  19. MilesTro

    MilesTro Senior Member

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    Oh shit! I left the toilet seat up!
     
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  20. zoupskim

    zoupskim Contributor Contributor

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    The light might have shone, if not for the want, the need... of the world, and thus the story ended before it began, with 500 pages of white ended, choked hope following the end... of the wooooorld... so read on... if you want to feel that need...

    *rattling noises*

    HAhaha, what a joke. I can't believe people buy this shit. Book 3 and 10 million in the bag is as easy as hitting 'record' on a phone- HEY SHARRON, WHERE'S MY CAR KEYS!?!?!
     
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  21. ixk

    ixk Banned

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    This is what makes her feel so curious to continue to read the letters. Her cognitive skills are warped... Why?
    She _can not forever not Even know_ Now, _and why am I so myself traitors?_
    -... so, now, this is a temporary world, this is a short time. Isk got late already.. she is just "ever so puzzled"_ and evEr so confUsing_
    Her mental talking is interrupted by adrenaline -
    the teddy said:
    "Level One_ Let's have Some fUN !"
    _You said this for the last time, right ?_
    - "u get u back right here young suN-"
    ... I wish I could speaks likes that, says isks, sadly. The teddy bear's red little heart glows in the darkness of twilight and it just smiles so wide and badly. Her inner voice said her to run from scary creepy happy_ever so ever so fast_ ... and she was out to step down to the night garden in the long black grass... in some time... even if she did miss that last time... excited, blooding her lip, so madly and so truly pleased to have some red adrenaline sip. All she wants to see is empty, so empty, space, so empty every where
    Sky to hands she looks to see the flashy language of the teddy bear :

    - I awaIt
    - U
    - no poor
    - ex
    - xcuses this time I
    - can't cAre IN fAct I jUst take U
    - not EV/vV/n if
    -thIS, , , has 2 mea//a/n
    - U are ALoNe
    - true U rANDOMSTICKI//cognt/v
    - Gift jusT RAMble on + on
    - to make no personal sense
    client/i/s/k///98701228gf//PErSonaL LOG_COMMENCE
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2018
  22. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    "One would think, then, that I would find poorly written prose entertaining, were I in the mood."
     
  23. dhampirefangs

    dhampirefangs Member

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    I woke up when a claw grabbed my feet.
     
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  24. Some Guy

    Some Guy Manguage Langler Supporter Contributor

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    We're we where we were. Where were we?
     
  25. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    I sat spellbound as the freshly-applied paint on the wall before me began, slowly, gradually, horribly, to dry.
     
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