She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.
-- Eric Rice of Sun Prairie, WI, winner of the Detective Fiction category of this year's Bulwer-Lytton competition.
Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, a Victorian novelist, is perhaps most memorably associated with Charles Schulz's Snoopy in the oft-repeated scene, sitting at a typewriter writing his great novel with the plagiarized opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night." In the early 80's, some folks decided to have a contest to see who could write the worst opening sentence for an imaginary novel.
This year's complete results, here: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm
Comments
A bad rap
I like that contest and always forget to look for the new winners. Thanks for the reminder, Pippa.
I think that poor old B-L gets a bad rap, and it's Snoopy's fault. Here is the whole that that famous bit is taken from:
Though a long way from great, that's not that bad, and he was the guy who said, "The pen is mightier than the sword".
Here is an opening from a huge best seller by (probably) the second richest writer in the world to compare it to:
And, no, the crawling eye balls are not the monster in the story.
Hugs, Jan
PS. While at the link, don't stop until you get at least as far as the vile puns.
Sorta like it
Or is it only me that thinks like that, well maybe not exactly like that but sort of in a roundabout skewed off the wall manner that vaguely resembles that. But maybe that was Donna's kitten, no not the magic one, the sugar licking one, you know earlier... Besides the flamingo could probably eat the kitten well maybe, what the hell do flamingos eat anyway? And Ibis's are messy so leave them out. Ummm, what were we talking about again?
Kristina
Wonderful!
Had a good laugh after reading your comment.
I think you should enter next year's contest - with the level of talent you've just displayed you could well win...
Flamingoes
Are filter feeders, which is why they always seem to be standing on their heads. the pink colour comes from carotenes present in the crustacea they eat, like shrimps.
Angharad
Angharad