First Friday Fiction Contest!

Nooooooooo!!!!

Yes, it's once again the first Friday of the month, so we're having another fiction contest! This month, I'm looking for a WORST FIRST LINE.

Don't think this is going to be easy, people. Don't think "It was a dark and stormy night" is going to cut it. First of all, Madeleine L'Engle redeemed that line by using it to start her novel A Wrinkle in Time. Second, the reason that line is considered to be so famously bad is because it is the start (just the start, mind you) of a novel called Paul Clifford by English novelist Edward George Bullwer-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.

Ouch. Now that's bad.

Think you've got what it takes to be terrible? Post in the comments!

And don't forget to check out the "winners" of the Bullwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which annually honors a previously unpublished worst first line. The grand prize winners are so awful that they occasionally approach the sublime...

"Ace, watch your head!" hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow provocatively, through red, full, sensuous lips, but he couldn't you know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning.

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.

No more than three entries, please. You have ONE WEEK to submit your entry, and I will announce the prize next week, after I figure out what it is. To ensure objectivity, I will narrow the entries down to the worst 5 or so, then let my husband pick the winner. He knows bad writing when he sees it...