 |
| Edward George Bulwer-Lytton |
With only four days left before
I must return to the chaos of my classroom, I am feeling an urgent pang to
write a serious entry about literary silliness.
Since 1982, San Jose State
University’s English Department has sponsored a literary competition to compose
an obnoxiously bad first sentence of what would become (if, God forbid, followed
through), an equally bad novel. The
inspiration for this whimsical contest came from the infamous first sentence of
an 1830 novel entitled Paul Clifford
by Victorian novelist, Edward George
Bulwer-Lytton:
“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.”
Notice
this clunky mess of a sentence contains a whopping 58 words, 1 sinister semicolon,
1 devious dash, 3 commas, and a useless pair of parenthesis. To an MFA graduate in Writing, this is
unadulterated literary sin! And now with over 10,000 wretched writers (me
being one of them), having tried their hands at outdoing Bulwer-Lytton’s
immortal opener, the website is chock-full of an impressive chunk of
unimpressive first-liners.
I have selected
a couple of my all-time favorite winners to whet the appetite, and if I feel
brave enough at the end of this entry, I may even share a couple of my own
dirty little attempts.
2002 Winner
On reflection, Angela
perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a
roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little
squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the
rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back
into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained. — Rephah Berg, Oakland, CA
2011 Dishonorable
Mention
Dawn crept up like the
panther on the gazelle, except it was light, not dark like a panther, and a
panther, though quiet, could never be as silent as the light of dawn, so really
the analogy doesn’t hold up well, as cool as it sounds, but it still is a great
way to begin a story; just not necessarily this particular one. — Warren Blair,
Ashburn, VA
For more silliness, I dare
you to peruse their website:
And finally, in honor of Mr.
Bulwer-Lytton, here are two of my best/worst novel openers…
After a long, treacherous
day teaching preschoolers, Miss Lucy dragged herself into the shower and let
the hot water pour down onto her head, her shoulders, her knees, and her toes…knees
and toes…knees and toes…eyes and ears and mouth and nose…head, shoulders, knees
and toes, knees and toes!
Hungry as a ravenous wolf,
Lucy hadn’t eaten herself yet and wasn’t planning to either.
Now it’s your turn! I look forward to seeing what you all come up
with…
