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HILARIOUS TERRIBLE FIRST SENTENCES
These will make you laugh out loud!!
33 Of The Most Hilariously Terrible First Sentences In Literature History
By Nico Lang/Thought Magazine*****
Every year, the announcement of Bulwer-Lytton Prize is a gift from bad writing heaven. Inspired by novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s famous “it was a dark and stormy night” opener, the contest asks writers to submit an opening sentence for the “worst of all possible novels” — although Fifty Shades of Grey has already been written. The results are perennially astounding, with entries in every genre from Children’s Literature to Spy Novels, and one sentence awarded the dubious honor of the worst sentence of the year. It’s like the Razzies, but better.
Here are some of the best entries from the past decade of the contest, each of them just as wonderfully atrocious as the next.
1. Sue Fondrie
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.
2. Ali Kawashima
As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand – who would take her away from all this – and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.
3. Chris Wieloch
She strutted into my office wearing a dress that clung to her like Saran Wrap to a sloppily butchered pork knuckle, bone and sinew jutting and lurching asymmetrically beneath its folds, the tightness exaggerating the granularity of the suet and causing what little palatable meat there was to sweat, its transparency the thief of imagination.
4. Janine Beacham
The fairies of Minglewood, which is near Dingly Pool, were having a grand revel with flower-cakes, and butterfly dances, looking ever so pretty, while Queen Bellaflora swept her wand o’er the waterfall’s foam, making it pop like the snot-bubbles on your baby sister’s face.
5. Molly Ringle
For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.
6. Jordan Kaderli
Betty had eyes that said come here, lips that said kiss me, arms and torso that said hold me all night long, but the rest of her body said, “Fillet me, cover me in cornmeal, and fry me in peanut oil”; romance wasn’t easy for a mermaid.
7. Rephah Berg
On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.
8. Cathy Bryant
As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting.
9. David S. Nelson
The Mushroom Men of Knarf were silently advancing on the unsuspecting earthlings, and their thin milky blood ran colder when they smelled spores from fungal toenail infections rising from many of the invaders’ feet, for to them it was a wondrous and shocking scent of kinship, homeland, and asexual reproduction.
10. Tonya Lavel
It was such a beautiful night; the bright moonlight illuminated the sky, the thick clouds floated leisurely by just above the silhouette of tall, majestic trees, and I was viewing it all from the front row seat of the bullet hole in my car trunk.
11. David Pepper
As an ornithologist, George was fascinated by the fact that urine and feces mix in birds’ rectums to form a unified, homogeneous slurry that is expelled through defecation, although eying Greta’s face, and sensing the reaction of the congregation, he immediately realized he should have used a different analogy to describe their relationship in his wedding vows.
12. Ron D. Smith
As the sun dropped below the horizon, the safari guide confirmed the approaching cape buffaloes were herbivores, which calmed everyone in the group, except for Herb, of course.
13. Elizabeth Muenster
Sterben counted calcium bars in the storage chamber, wondering why women back on Earth paid him little attention, but up here they seem to adore him, in fact, six fraichemaidens had already shown him their blinka.
14. Andrew Bowers
“Hmm …” thought Abigail as she gazed languidly from the veranda past the bright white patio to the cerulean sea beyond, where dolphins played and seagulls sang, where splashing surf sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells, where great gray whales bellowed and the sunlight sparkled off the myriad of sequins on the flyfish’s bow ties, “time to get my meds checked.”
15. Pamela Patchet
The notion that they would no longer be a couple dashed Helen’s hopes and scrambled her thoughts not unlike the time her sleeve caught the edge of the open egg carton and the contents hit the floor like fragile things hitting cold tiles, more pitiable because they were the expensive organic brown eggs from free-range chickens, and one of them clearly had double yolks entwined in one sac just the way Helen and Richard used to be.
16. David S. Nelson
He swaggered into the room (in which he was now the “smartest guy”) with a certain Wikipedic insouciance, and without skipping a beat made a beeline towards Dorothy, busting right through her knot of admirers, and she threw her arms around him and gave him a passionate though slightly tickly kiss, moaning softly, “Oooohh, Scarecrow!”
17. Jeanne Villa
She sipped her latte gracefully, unaware of the milk foam droplets building on her mustache, which was not the peachy-fine baby fuzz that Nordic girls might have, but a really dense, dark, hirsute lip-lining row of fur common to southern Mediterranean ladies nearing menopause, and winked at the obviously charmed Spaniard at the next table.
18. Jessica Sasishara
On their first date he’d asked how much she thought Edgar Allan Poe’s toe nails would sell for on eBay, and on their second he paid for subway fair with nickels he fished out of a fountain, but he was otherwise charming and she thought that they could have a perfectly tolerable life together.
19. Beth Fand Incollingo
Like a mechanic who forgets to wipe his hands on a shop rag and then goes home, hugs his wife, and gets a grease stain on her favorite sweater – love touches you, and marks you forever.
20. Shannon Wedge
Leopold looked up at the arrow piercing the skin of the dirigible with a sort of wondrous dismay – the wheezy shriek was just the sort of sound he always imagined a baby moose being beaten with a pair of accordions might make.
21. Charles Howland
The professor looked down at his new young lover, who rested fitfully, lashed as she was with duct tape to the side of his stolen hovercraft, her head lolling gently in the breeze, and as they soared over the buildings of downtown St. Paul to his secret lair he mused that she was much like a sweet ripe juicy peach, except for her not being a fuzzy three-inch sphere produced by a tree with pink blossoms and that she had internal organs and could talk.
22. Kathryn Minicozzi
As she slowly drove up the long, winding driveway, Lady Alicia peeked out the window of her shiny blue Mercedes and spied Rodrigo the new gardener standing on a grassy mound with his long black hair flowing in the wind, his brown eyes piercing into her very soul, and his white shirt open to the waist, revealing his beautifully rippling muscular chest, and she thought to herself, “I must tell that lazy idiot to trim the hedges by the gate.”
23. Jim Gleeson
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.
24. Dennis Barry
Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.
25. Randy Groom
Colin grabbed the switchgear and slammed the spritely Vauxhall Vixen into a lower gear as he screamed through the roundabout heading toward the familiar pink rowhouse in Puking-On-The-Wold, his mind filled with the image of his comely Olive, dressed in some lacy underthing, waiting on the couch with only a smile and a cucumber sandwich, hoping that his lunch hour would provide sufficient time for both a naughty little romp and a digestive biscuit.
26. Leslie Muir
He was a dark and stormy knight, and this excited Gwendolyn, but admittedly not as much as last night when he was Antonio Banderas in drag, or the night before that when he was a French Legionnaire who blindfolded her and fed her pommes frites from his kepi.
27. Linda Boatright
Corinne considered the colors (palest green, gray and lavender) and texture (downy as the finest velvet) and wondered, “How long have these cold cuts been in my refrigerator?”
28. Emma DeZordi
Chain-smoking as he stood in the amber glow of the street lamp, he gazed up at the brownstone wherein resided Bunny Morgan, and thought how like a bunny Bunny was, though he had read somewhere that rabbits were coprophages, which meant that they ate their own feces, which was really disgusting now that he thought about it, and nothing like Bunny, at least he hoped not, so on second thought Bunny wasn’t like a bunny after all, but she still was pretty hot.
29. Dan Winters
Sex with Rachel after she turned fifty was like driving the last-place team on the last day of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race, the point no longer the ride but the finish, the difficulty not the speed but keeping all the parts moving in the right direction, not to mention all that irritating barking.
30. James Pokines
“Bring a bottle of wine and wear something uncomplicated – I’m in no mood for a struggle tonight,” rolled from Jean-Pierre’s lips like a bowling ball shooting up the return ramp, only to slow itself abruptly at the top before ka-whonking! into the balls already lined up there like all the lines she had heard before, and Sylvia knew at last that all the good ones were not married, gay, or in Mexican prisons.
31. Stephen Farnsworth
When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday, his children packed his bags and drove him to Golden Pastures retirement complex just off Interstate 95.
32. Howie McLennon
Before they met, his heart was a frozen block of ice, scarred by the skate blades of broken relationships, then she came along and like a beautiful Zamboni flooded his heart with warmth, scraped away the ugly slushy bits, and dumped them in the empty parking lot of his soul.
33. Mary E. Patrick
As I gardened, gazing towards the autumnal sky, I longed to run my finger through the trail of mucus left by a single speckled slug – innocuously thrusting past my rhododendrons – and in feeling that warm slime, be swept back to planet Alderon, back into the tentacles of the alien who loved me.
*****Nico Lang is a Producer at Thought Catalog, as well as the former correspondent and blogger for WBEZ (Chicago’s local NPR affiliate), the Co-Creator of In Our Words and a graduate student in DePaul University’s Media & Cinema Studies program. Lang is the Co-Founder of Chicago’s Queer Intercollegiate Alliance and a columnist for HEAVEMedia. At HEAVE, Nico writes film reviews and talks about nerd stuff on a weekly podcast called Pod People. Elsewhere in podcasting, Lang is the former host of Broad Shoulders, a monthly podcast for Chicago’s Live Lit community. Nico is also a contributor at the Huffington Post and has been featured in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The L.A. Times, The Guardian, XOJane, IndieWire, The New Gay, on NPR and their mother’s refrigerator. Follow Nico on Twitter @Nico_Lang or on the Facebook.
MY TOP FIVE WRITING MISTAKES
Recently, someone asked what I considered my strongest talent in writing to be and it got me to thinking about my weakest. Like my character, Tizzy, I tend to think my cup is always half-empty, so it was natural for me to focus on my weakest.
Narrowing it down to one, proved to be more difficult than I thought, so I came up with my top five. I’m not alone. These are all mistakes new writers make, but even seasoned writers, now and then, fall victim to old habits. If we didn’t, editing wouldn’t be such a big job.
So, here I go, in no particular order.
1. Over use of the word “that”
To avoid using “that” too much, I do a word search, find each one, and read the sentence, and then read it again, without it. If omitting it doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence, I edit it out.
2. Over writing or over explaining
Here’s an example: He was accepted unconditionally at each university where he’d applied. In fact, he couldn’t remember applying to any school where he’d not been accepted… Because both of those sentences say the same thing, only one is needed.
3. Use of too many proper names or pronouns
This is a biggie for me. I find myself using my character’s names each time I refer to them, when a pronoun would work better. But then, a new problem. I have to be careful not to use pronouns too much in one sentence….She leaned forward and rested her head in her hand…she, her, her…oops.
4. Use of too many adverbs
This is one mistake I’ve overcome. Thank goodness. Now that I have, it drives me nuts to read authors who do this, especially if they use them with tags. She said, quietly. He said, wearily. She said, happily. He said, sternly.
As one editor pointed out, verbs drive a story, not adverbs.
5. The dreaded info dump
This happens when the author includes a long stretch of backstory such as a character’s childhood into the middle of an action scene. Even though the information may be important, it will stop the forward pace of the story. Exposition/backstory should be written in bits and pieces as the story progresses. Dialogue is an excellent way to do this.
I could go on with a much longer list. Show, don’t tell. Point of View (POV) switches. Punctuation. Passive voice. Avoid clichés. Too many metaphors or similes. Description. and on and on.
Successful writers make writing look easy, but not one will claim it is. This writing stuff is hard and like my grandma always said: Good, Better, best. Never let it rest, until the good is better and the better is best…thus…edit, edit, edit!
Oh, if I have a strong point, it’s dialogue…or so I’m told.
What’s your strongest writing talent?
WHO DO YOU WRITE LIKE?
Have you visited the site http://iwl.me/? It’s a fun thing to do. You copy and paste a sample of your writing into their box, then click analyze and in a few seconds, you’ll get a message telling you what author your style most resembles.
Okay, so I did it and here are my results. First, I entered the romance story I’m currently working on, TELL ME A SECRET. My style came up as a match to Dan Brown.
According to: http://nickmomrik.com/2004/06/11/dan-brown-writing-style/
Dan’s style is short chapters…check. Bits of history blended into the plot. Check.
Story takes place in a short amount of time. Check. Good character development. Hopefully check. Suspense. Check.
Then, I entered my first published novel, LAID OUT AND CANDLE LIT. Seems the writing style in it matched Isaac Asimov.
Asimov’s novels are pleasant reading. You won’t need to cuddle up with a dictionary to get through an Asimov book. His characters are usually well defined and his storylines are well thought out. Asimov was a perfectionist and would try to correct any discrepancies that he created in his previous works.**Well, seems like Isaac and I do have something in common. I just finished RE-editing my second novel, because I found too many things I wanted to re-do!! Asimov writing style source: http://www.futurefiction.com/Isaac%20Asimov.htm#style
Okay, two entries, two different authors, so I decided to go for a third try to get a match. I entered text from my second published novel, YOU’RE BUSTING MY NUPTIALS. Surprise! Now my style proved to be like H.G. Wells.
The writing style of H.G. Wells in some of his novels called scientific romances tended to minimize the role of individual heroes, took an evolutionary perspective, and held a bleak view of the future. – See more at: http://www.chacha.com/question/what-writing-style-did-h.g.-wells-use#sthash.x5r3Krlv.dpuf
I guess the opening scene in YBMN, has a bleak view of the future because the groom doesn’t show up for the wedding!!
Why not try a short story? My award winning THE FIVE SENSES, seemed a good choice. Guess what? That style is most like Margaret Mitchell.
Mitchell had a very set idea on what her style of writing should and should not be, as she said, “I sweat blood to make my style simple and stripped bare.” http://www.researchhistory.org/2012/06/30/the-writer-margaret-mitchell/
So, my conclusion…Ann Everett’s writing style is like, Ann Everett! I’ll bet if you put in several samples of your work, you’ll come up with the same results. There’s a little bit of a lot of different authors in all of us!!
REVIEWING FRIENDS DILEMMA
Just as sports figures have player friends, actors have actor friends, it goes without saying, writers have writer friends. But, I said it anyway. I think that makes me a bad writer!! Well, that’s my topic, so even if it was bad writing, it was an excellent segue.
All writers are faced with the same problem when it comes to reviewing a friend’s work. What to do, what to do…if you don’t like it, or it’s just not good? Even if you think the book is okay…that’s just a three star rating on Amazon. Can you really give a three star and expect to remain friends? I think not.
Therefore, how much faith can we put in all those ratings? I think it’s safe to say a large portion, especially first reviews will be from friends or family. In my case, mostly friends. I couldn’t pay my family to read or review my work, except for two members and they only did because they’re in my will and was afraid I’d cut them out!
On the flip side of the coin, I never believe four or five star reviews given to my books if they come from friends or family. I automatically consider they’ve done it just to be nice. I love those reviews from complete strangers, because I know they don’t care if they hurt my feelings or not.
Also, the recommended review I got from Mid-West reviews was nice to receive. They have no personal relationship with me and no reason to lie about liking my book.
In the past few years, I’ve read books, that had I been honest, would have only given a two star rating. The writing was redundant. The story had massive plot holes. Way too much passive voice. More telling than showing and although, the writing may have been technically correct, the story was boring.
The thing that bothers me most about having to lie in a review, is that I really feel honesty would be helpful. Maybe not in a public review, but a private email telling them because of friendship, I gave them a four star on web-sites, but because I hoped to help them improve future novels, I really felt the book deserved less, and then list the reasons.
But, who am I kidding? Even that, said in private, would more than likely strain a relationship. It’s like asking someone if your butt looks big in a pair of jeans. Do you really want them to say…yeah, it does. Not likely.
Sometimes, I think it would be best to make a policy NOT to read friend’s novels. That way, the pressure is off. Then, I could read it without them knowing and if I loved it, leave a review. If I didn’t…no harm…no foul.
Once this blog is out, all my friends are going to be asking themselves…I wonder if she’s talking about me? Well, I’ll never tell, so don’t bother to ask. I value friendship above five stars, that’s why I lie in the first place.
What about you? Does it bother you to lie, or do you feel that’s your responsibility as a friend to be supportive?
WE ALL NEED A GOOD LAUGH
“Write because you have something in your soul that you want to communicate.”~~Amish Tripathi
I got the current copy of THE WRITER magazine today and the above quote came from an article in this months edition.
One of the top questions in almost every interview I’ve done is, “Why do you write?” It’s then I wish I could come up with some deep, insightful answer that would make readers swoon at my philosophical depth. The simple truth is, I like it. It gives me an opportunity to shut out the “real” world and create my own.
For instance, in both, LAID OUT AND CANDLE LIT and YOU’RE BUSTING MY NUPTIALS, I’ve based two characters on my sister and me, but I made us younger with bigger boobs. It’s that kind of freedom I love.
Last month, I had the opportunity to speak at two wonderful local events. The 2013 Senior Expo, and the annual meeting of Friends of the Library. Since April is National Humor Month and I write humor, it was a match made in Heaven.
First let me list a few benefits of laughter: It boosts your immune system, reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, increases memory, and improves learning and creativity.
Wow! That’s a lot.
Do you know how many times a day kids laugh? Hold on to your hat…400-500 times a day. Now, do you know how many times a day an adult laughs on average? 18. Unbelievable.
These facts were all part of my presentations and I gotta tell you, 18 times a day didn’t get a laugh, but laugh yoga did. That’s right, there are now clubs in 60 countries that meet in order to fake laugh, because it’s good for you.
Turns out, you’re brain can’t tell if you’re really laughing or faking it. I expect women are better at this than men.
In my research, I also found that laughing is more contagious than a yawn. If you don’t believe me just watch the Youtube video of six babies laughing. It will crack you up!
I guess the answer to the question of “why do I write” is…I write because I hope to make someone laugh and if I do, that makes me happy.
Now, tomorrow, pledge to laugh more than 18 times even if you have to fake it. You feel better.
WHY MY DIETS FAIL
Okay, so I’ve been working on a cookbook for months now, one that features only desserts. Since my novels include a bakery…Sweet Thangs, I thought a cookbook would be a fantastic companion and a great marketing tool.
There is just one negative to my madness. In order to do the cookbook, I must actually bake each item and then photograph them. Then, you know what happens to all those sweets? I eat them.
Some weeks I bake six different things. I’m talking pralines, peanut patties, fudge, cakes, cookies, sweet breads, and the list goes on and on.
Needless to say, I’ve gained fifteen pounds, so a diet seemed in order. I’ve started one each week for the last month and so far, I’ve loss four pounds and gained six!
Tonight, in place of eating cookies, I decided on a Dannon Fit & Light yogurt single serve, only 80 calories. I don’t really like them plain and that has more to do with the consistency than the taste. I don’t like pudding, custard, or jello. I don’t like the feel of it in my mouth.
I like crunchy stuff, so I added some granola to it. Not bad, but still needed something. I sprinkled it with cinnamon. Better, but not exactly what I was craving. I chopped up a few pecans and mixed them in. Even better, but still not a winner. I squirted a little chocolate syrup on it and voila! Just right.
Now, reckon why I’m not losing weight? I’d been better off eating a couple of Golden Oreos and would have been much happier.
Oh well, Monday is coming up and I can start all over again!!
Ann Everett, Best Selling Author
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{I hope you enjoy this sweet, short-story romance!}