> After almost twenty years of baldness, Harry finally decided to splurge on an expensive, human-hair wig – after all, four hundred dollars to look twenty years younger was a small price toupée.
Now, that joke could have been written any time in the last century. But nobody thought of it until 2019. So never worry that there aren't any good ideas left.
"All I can say is that I have never been so insulted (even by the likes of my moronic sister (who seems to delight in making me uncomfortable (and she is so good at it, knowing just how to push my buttons (which I think is a skill that all siblings possess to some extent (which I believe proves some sort of genetic link (despite the fact that I really enjoyed genetics in school (relating on so many levels to Gregor Mendel and his peas (but of course peas make me gag, since my throat swells when I eat them)))))))) as I was by someone suggesting that I have ADD."
Already linked in a reply by shantly, but see also the Lyttle Lytton contest, which requires entry be short rather than rambling on: http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html
Wow, this is awesome. Made an entry for next year for the Dark & Stormy category, which seems to exist by virtue of the rules discouraging you from using it:
It was a Dark & Stormy night in Chiang Mai, with monsoon weather rapidly setting in only those up to no good dared brave the streets, however in Sacramento where this book is set it was actually a fairly pleasant afternoon.
That looks like a run-on sentence as well. After "streets" should either be a period, or at least a semi-colon. Maybe its missing a couple of colons in the second half as well. Well done!
Well the way this works is you can either join in the fun yourself or abstain and take the piss out of those that have a go, but I'm afraid you do have to pick a lane, imagin8or.
It was a dark and stormy lane, amidst a dark and stormy night, and down the lane shuffled a small ragged pile of clothes hiding a small and ragged child.
She approached the fork in the lane, wherein the choices led to Town and to the hamlet of Ruin.
Town held Rita's past and future, her torment and her only family. Ruin was several miles off, and on any other day she would only have glanced at that fork and dreamed. But today she had been given a wide brimmed hat by a pitying Lady, and instead of misery beneath the rags lay a tiny kernel of hope, sheltered from the rain.
As she neared the fork hope was fanned into anger, and into need, and into determination. For so many nights the rain had beat so hard against her face that she could barely see to walk, let alone to choose her path. But tonight she had just a few inches of respite, the luxury of seeing the fork for the choice it was.
Her fists clenched and her mouth set hard, her shuffle turned to a stride, and she chose her path, joining unknowingly every other shuffling wretch who before her had reached their last drop of hope and spent it taking the path to Ruin, where no one would dare to seek them.
It was a dark and stormy lane, amidst a dark and stormy night, and down the
lane shuffled a small ragged pile of clothes hiding a small and ragged child
(fullstop) She approached the fork in the lane, wherein the choices led to
Town and to the hamlet of Ruin (fullstop) Town held Rita's past and future,
her torment and her only family (fullstop) Ruin was several miles off, and on
any other day she would only have glanced at that fork and dreamed (fullstop)
But today she had been given a wide brimmed hat by a pitying Lady, and instead
of misery beneath the rags lay a tiny kernel of hope, sheltered from the rain
(fullstop) As she neared the fork hope was fanned into anger, and into need,
and into determination (fullstop) For so many nights the rain had beat so
hard against her face that she could barely see to walk, let alone to choose
her path (fullstop) But tonight she had just a few inches of respite, the
luxury of seeing the fork for the choice it was (fullstop) Her fists clenched
and her mouth set hard, her shuffle turned to a stride, and she chose her
path, joining unknowingly every other shuffling wretch who before her had
reached their last drop of hope and spent it taking the path to Ruin, where no
one would dare to seek them (fullstop) (like, for real)
A lot of these from years past have made it in to the Linux package “fortune”. If you pipe fortune in to the program “cowsay” you can have a cow tell you a short silly comment. On all my computers I do this in the .bashrc so it happens on every new terminal. Highly recommended.
sudo apt install fortune cowsay
Then edit ~/.bashrc
Add the following line to the end of the file:
These are so very entertaining. Haha, some of them are actually clever enough that they'd be good one-line jokes if you edit out all the stuff-to-make-it-succeed-in-this-award:
> Dropping his now-empty Remington .30-06 and tearing across the tundra after two weeks of hunting in the Alaskan wilderness in the company of none other than three-time Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt—the rustic outing being the spoils of his winning bid at the Sun Valley Country Day School live-auction fundraiser—Bart Michaelman realized with dismay that, in this particular instance, he did in fact have to outrun the bear.
I feel obligated to copy my fave, because I just can’t stop laughing—
“Detective Wilhelm Schmidt’s raspy voice poured through the telephone receiver like a dump truck of gravel unburdening its load—much like the trucks that worked around the clock at Rohrer’s Quarry off of 1-81, transporting payloads of lime, sandstone, crushed rock, and gypsum—though with Detective Schmidt’s heavy German accent, excavation on its own would not suffice, and a second, albeit entirely different industry would need to be invoked to really paint a crystal clear picture of his voice.”
The whole idea is based on the famous, rambling and horrible "[i]t was a dark and stormy night..." opening [0]. A character count limit is missing the point altogether.
I'm sorry, I didn't express myself clearly. If these sentences were shorter and pithier, they would qualify for the best starting sentences, since most of them are quite funny and/or intriguing. To win the first prize of the worst sentences, they need to be not only rambling (as most are), but also horrible.
The winners of a similar contest mentioned by shantly are more in the spirit of being horrible (or at least corny) while being limited in their rambling length.
Does anyone have a term for the practice of transitioning from in-universe to out-universe? A few of these sentences do that. I've always found it a little annoying. Another example is when someone asks, "Why did the so-and-so movie character do this?" and someone else wittily responds, "Because the screenwriter needed him to!" I've heard them referred to as Watsonian and Doylist respectively but I'm wondering if there are other names for it.
Though the contest is some kind of fun, I do find the insinuation that Lytton was a terrible writer rather unkind. His works do posess a certain gravitas, and some esp "The Last Days of Pompeii" were much influential.
I think selecting him as the inspiration for painful opening sentences stems directly from the opening line to Paul Clifford:
"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."
This sentence gained pop-culture resonance in the Peanuts comic strip, where Snoopy repeatedly would start writing his novels with "It was a dark and stormy night." and quickly derail from there.
Yeah I’m not sure why it’s supposed to be so bad. It doesn’t stand out as being far worse than lots of other old books. The Scarlet Letter begins like this and goes on to have sentences so euphemistic and littered with commas that they need three re-reads to understand, but that’s a classic:
“A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.”
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents. At times 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."
I'm not a professional writer but I personally like this rephrasing.
He was, by all modern standards, a rather terrible writer, though _Pelham_ is rather interesting if read as throwback
eighteenth-century fiction or a precursor to detective novels. If nothing else, 'his mouth full of truth and turbot' is a rather brilliant phrase.
I thought there was a "found" category for real opening sentences, but I don't see it now. The Lyttle Lytton awards, linked elsewhere, do have a "found" division which you might enjoy.
I would absolutely read the grand prize winner. "he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago."
It would be a very, very hard book to write, and most likely pretty brain-frying to read, but I'd read the crap out of that book. One of the most experimental notions I've ever heard.
It could end with 'frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' and 'tomorrow is another day'!
Has a Douglas Adams quality about it; if it's possible to write a book containing an infinite improbability drive, a restaurant at the end of the universe, and a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue, it's probably possible to write this.
thought Mettler, raising a glass of sub-par Chardonnay that matched her gradual discontent with the world, before replacing it carefully on its coaster so as no to disturb the bear snoozing by the door.
Naturally, you can generate awful continuations in the same style via GPT-2.
Model prompt >>> As they sprinted together down the echoing, looping ramp of the deserted Guggenheim Museum, closely pursued by three swarthy members of the resolutely vicious Cannelloni gang, square-jawed British Royal Marine art historian/world's deadliest sniper John Savage and his voluptuous young modern art critic/Navajo linguist Samantha Silver cursed architect/interior designer/writer/educator Frank Lloyd Wright for designing such a circuitous route out of the building.
>>>
======================================== SAMPLE 1 ========================================
The fact that the entire way was over a five-pointed star of the "Stars of David," which both men had tattooed on their arms, was beside the point. Neither of them would have been deterred if their pursuers had been armed with nuclear weapons, which would undoubtedly obliterate the entire museum, as well as any of the many high-rise buildings surrounding it.
At the heart of the building is an enormous, ornate winged monolith bearing the words "
"Just the way he built this place," Savage snarled, his hands clenched, "he'd be able to make any building disappear any time he wanted."
A couple of hours later, back at work, Silver and I were finally able to catch up with fellow explorer/writer/reporter Charles Fenton, who had been in the Museum galleries earlier in the day and stayed behind to observe our conversation. "That was quite a day!" he beamed at me.
As they approached the main lobby, Savage turned and grinned, showing off his impressive, biceps-bound physique. There was a reason the gang of thugs had been lured here, he explained to Silver. There were two other entrances out to street level. "The most efficient way of crossing this place is by helicopter." He paused, eyes scanning the distance. "And that would require an army or navy to pull it off." He raised his gun and laughed. A few yards away, Savage and
Now, that joke could have been written any time in the last century. But nobody thought of it until 2019. So never worry that there aren't any good ideas left.