Thursday, May 11, 2006

Contest: write a horrible sentence

It was a dark and stormy night

Cries of "Ahoy!" broke the turgid silence of the golf course; the Cap'n approached.

The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to write "the world's most atrocious first line to a novel." Above is one of the, uh, winners.

Here's an especially bad (but to me, amusing) winner from the 2000 contest:

"Gwendolyn, a world-class mountaineer, summoned the last of her strength for one more heroic haul on the nylon strap (for she was, after so many failed attempts, dangerously close to exhaustion) and looked heavenward with resolve, aware that, in spite of her fatigue and anguish, she must breach the crevice in one well-coordinated movement, somehow cleave the smooth fissure with the flimsy synthetic strand even though she was chaffed raw by her repeated efforts, or more sensibly, just give the heave-ho to this new-fangled (and painfully small) Victoria's Secret thong and slip into her well-worn -- and infinitely more roomy -- knickers."
--Gary Dahl

(By the way, it actually is dark and stormy here tonight.)

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