211. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
Reading these compendiums of purposefully bad writing, you realize: this is hard to do well. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (RIP) was an annual contest to write the worst possible opening sentence to an imaginary novel. Named for Victorian writer Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who opened a novel with the words “It was a dark and stormy night,” the contest was the brainchild of Scott Rice, an English professor at San José State University in California. It ran for 42 years, from 1983 to 2025. By the end, Rice was receiving 6,000 entries a year. “You just have to write one sentence,” he said, explaining the contest’s popularity. “It’s like getting to start a fight and not having to finish it.”
She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.
Lawrence Person, Austin, TX (Grand Prize, 2024)
He glanced at his unsuspecting guests, his slight smile hiding his hateful mood, his calm eyes hiding his evil intentions, and his smooth skin hiding his tensed muscles, skeletal structure, and internal organs.
Dave Agans, Wilton, NH (Crime and Detective Winner, 2018)
Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.
Sue Fondrie, Oshkosh, WI (Grand Prize, 2011)
Gerald began—but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash—to pee.
Jim Gleeson, Madison, WI (Grand Prize, 2007)
The moment he laid eyes on the lifeless body of the nude socialite sprawled across the bathroom floor, Detective Leary knew she had committed suicide by grasping the cap on the tamper proof bottle, pushing down and twisting while she kept her thumb firmly pressed against the spot the arrow pointed to, until she hit the exact spot where the tab clicks into place, allowing her to remove the cap and swallow the entire contents of the bottle, thus ending her life.
Artie Kalemeris, Fairfax, Va (Grand Prize, 1997)
The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese, feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically peddling unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by Nature's maxim, “Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work,” and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
Sheila B. Richter, Minneapolis, MN (Grand Prize, 1987)
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This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.
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