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IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT…
// July 29th, 2008 // 21 Comments » // humour, quotes, random madness
Sometimes bad English is so bad that it’s good. In honour of all those writers who were never destined to make it past the first line, the English department at San Jose State University runs a yearly contest named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803-1873) whose name is synonymous with poor writing.
According to Wikipedia, the said baron actually coined the well known phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword”, – in his case it was probably a very little sword, more of a letter-opener, methinks.
Most infamously, he brought us that introductory line, beloved of nursery tale tellers worldwide… “It was a dark and stormy night.”
“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.”
–Edward George Bulwer-Lytton(1830)
Here follow 10 winners (I’m not sure which year these are from – can anyone help?) of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, AKA “Dark and Stormy Night Contest” wherein one writes only the first line of a bad novel:
10) “As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it.”
9) “Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens.”
8 ) “With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description.”
7) “Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: ‘Andre creep… Andre creep… Andre creep.’”
6) “Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved.”
5) “Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store.”
4) “Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do.”
3) “Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.”
2) “Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death – in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies.”
AND THE WINNER IS…
1) “The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog’s deception, screaming madly, ‘You lied!”
Liked this? For more academic silliness, check out BLINDED BY SCIENCE
