(no subject)

[davywavy]

Several years ago, my sister and I (for reasons I forget) set out to write our own novels. My sister finished hers, but I got about six chapters into mine before I realised that my fortune lay in my looks rather than my brain.
I was reminded of this yesrday when I learned about the Bulwer-Lytton prize for bad literature.
If you haven't heard of Bulwer-Lytton, he was a minor light in the pre-Raphaelite movement and an author whose primary claim to fame was that he wrote the first novel to open with the words "It was a dark and stormy night..."
The prize was created in his memory. To quote their own PR: Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.
As it's Friday and my magazine went to press yesterday so I've got more time on my hands, today I'll run a competition based on this on my LJ. I challenge you to write the worst possible opening line to a novel of a given genre. To start you off, here's a few of mine:


Fantasy
One night, Elamandir, an elven theif, Krognor, a half-orc barbarian, Rastan, a Dwarven priest and Magellan, a human mage were sitting in the tavern when a dark stranger clad in robes of the purest sable night came up and said "Excuse me, are you adventurers?"

Romance
It is a truth universally acknowleded, that a single man in possession of a fiery temper but boundless charity, pectorals you could bounce rocks off, hair that would put Fabio to shame and a good fortune is probably gay.

Popular Science
As everyone knows, the Earth is only a little more than six thousand years old.

Comments

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

Victorian Detective Novel

The October moon undulated like a silvery monkfish caught in a whirlpool of black black darkness on the rain spattered cobbled street surface below my feet. Fuck those assholes down at city hall, fuck Lestrade, fuck my brother, "Fetch the pistols!" I roared, "Its payback time Watson!"

I could almost feel that cold gunmetal in my hand, slick like death itself, cold like revenge, hard as my dick. Bitch better have my money.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

That's excellent.

[(Anonymous)]

Although the disfigured corpse, contorted almost beyond recognition in its hideous death throes, was in itself a shocking enough sight, it was not, after all, the first, nor yet the hundredth, disfigured corpse that Dr Langham had come across out of hours in the Uffizi Musuem, Florence, during the course of his work as professor of Indo-European occult philology; nor yet was it by any means the first victim to have died as a result of apparently self-administered ritual disembowelling - no, what transfixed, and held, Langham's appalled eye was the unmistakeable glint of ruby light from a crevice in the cold, stony floor, a glint that issued from a unique gemstone, whose proper setting, as Langham well knew, was in the ring on the finger of the Pope himself.

H

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Yay, a Da Vinci Code sequel!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

A comment upon the quality of Dan Brown's writing, perhaps?

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Brief Novel
The End.

Fantasy
Con Ann III the 23rd level barbarian priestess warrior Elven dryad vampire sorcerer of the line of ancient kings sat down at the bar and ordered herself a blood wyne.

Mystery
Bob was the murderer. It would take the detectives a long time to unravel all the complex clues and false leads to work this out before shooting him in a back alley.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

There's something painfully true about bad fantasy novels being based on people's campaigns, isn't there?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm pretty sure she should've been a ninja too. Ah, happy days. All it needs is Sheikh Forinitiative to set the scene.

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

Self help:

Let the true inner beauty of you rise through the murky layers of doubt and self loathing to shine through, like a beacon of light in a grey, despairing world. Unleash your inner god or goddess and believe that you are magnificent.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Self-help book as given away free with the magazines my sister reads

As the age of Aquarius dawns, now is the time to reach out and find the real you - the sexy go-getter that every woman has inside her; and by combining the latest in cosmetic technology and ancient Peruvian chanting, we show you how!

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

I fail to see the risible nature of that statement; Peruvian chanting made me everything I am today.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Is that really a recommendation?

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

Tsk. The acerbic nature of your reply reveals the bile and bitterness surging beneath your good natured exterior. I will chant for you.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I can feel my chakra clearing as you speak.

[reddragdiva]

And don't forget the guaranteed orgasm. Er, I mean, "GUARANTEED ORGASM!!!11!!"

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

That's my job.

[hobbsthepenguin.livejournal.com]

"By the Power of Greyskull", he claimed as he finished rutting with another wilted beauty, "Fetch me another." Igor shuffled off at a medium rate to fetch his master's next cumdumpster of love.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Either you've been reading my diary, or you really want me and you've been fantasising over it.

I know which I think.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Horror

The mangled and flayed corpse of her lover, dripping blood onto her sheer lacy nightgown and gaffer-taped to the ceiling, wasn't what Lucy had hoped to see first thing in the morning when she woke up from a long night of passion but she did, screamed like she never had before and fainted.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Her pert young breasts heaving beneath her slinky, diaphanous nightgown like naughty puppies in a bag, Lucy slowly awoke to the steady drip drip drip of her lover's blood and ichor dripping from his ceiling-stapled corpse directly into the glass of Listerine on her occasional table.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Really? Drat - I was aiming for bloody awful :)

[borusa.livejournal.com]

The Writer of the Dick and Jane books tries 19th Century Romance
Dick has a ball. Dick has a big ball. Jane wears a dress. Jane wears a very nice dress. Dick does not see Jane. Rebecca Uffingdon-Smythe has a nicer dress than Jane. Dick sees Rebecca Uffingdon-Smythe. Jane is sad.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Rebecca Uffingdon-Smythe has consumption! Cough, Rebeccea, cough! See Rebecca die. See Jane comfort Dick.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I was sure someone would have commented upon that by now.

[(Anonymous)]

Fish / Barrel is scarcely an appropriate analogy.

Cyberpunk

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

As both of them realised that they were but electronic dreams in a mind of an asexual, evolved, artificial intelligence they just stared at each other mutely under the sky - pixellated grey, like a digital TV tuned to the wrong channel, reflected in her mirrorshade sunglasses which in turn were reflected in the chrome of his Colt-Vauxhall K54000 .98 Magnum explosive tipped gatling pistol - and the cold hard rain began to fall.

Re: Cyberpunk

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You read far too much William Gibson.

Re: Cyberpunk

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any Gibson in years. Any idea what his new one is like?

Re: Cyberpunk

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

No idea - I haven't read any of his since Idoru.
The 'TV tuned to a dead channel' line is the opening line of Neuromancer, though. I thought you were satirising him :)

[borusa.livejournal.com]

No Ice Cream on Tuesdays
To the outside world, my family were the stereotype of respectability. But beneath the facade of our pleasant surburban house in the leafy suburb of Uxbridge hid a demon. A demon formed from the domineering patriarchy enforced chillingly by my father. He ruled my and my sister's lives from the moment we were born to the point where we claimed our own independence from him. Choosing what we wore, where we went, what we ate - even what names we would be known by. Our very identity was chosen and controlled by our father, supported blindly by our mother.

Yet another in the succession of only-slightly-less-than-idyllic childhoods that the author has only just come to terms with. When he received the advance.

[fonnparr.livejournal.com]

Terrence the terrible tri-pedal tortoise trotted towards Timothy, the tightly trussed triceratops. Terrence's target took time to tackle, tick, tock, tick, tock. Telescopic tails tickling, talking to the teatime television. Then Timothy took the train to travel.

[gwaunquest.livejournal.com]

Fantasy-
The fleeing Princess laid the sleeping babe at the monestery door.
"Grow strong and brave my child" she said, gently kissing his forehead.
As she mounted her horse and galloped into the night, it never occured to her that she had forgotten to ring the bell.
"Poor little mite froze to death" proclaimed the abbot. "Best put a sign up on the door, with an arrow pointing to the bell"

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

"But look on the bright side", continued the abbot. "This is a splendid opportunity for me to try out my new animate dead spell.