> 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.
I tend to write with an excessive amount of parenthesis with context/tangents. I used to joke it was due to Lisp/Scheme being one of my first languages. Took me a few years to realize the ADD connection.
Is use of deeply nested parentheticals really a sign of ADD? Certainly, nesting the parentheticals deep enough to overflow your mental context stack will lead to losing the plot. However, if both you and your intended listener have the capacity to keep all of the contexts in memory, it wouldn't seem to cause problems.
> If I wanted to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a dystopian YA’s protagonist, I needed several things: missing or deceased parents (check), a complicated romantic life involving multiple partners and predictable behavior (check), a tough exterior that protected my sensitive inner workings (check), and finally, a life of danger, uncertainty, and constant struggle to survive (check); it turns out, turtles are well-equipped to star in YA adventures!
Fixed now. Thanks! Our software uses canonical URLs when it finds them and in this case the canonical URL was https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2019. I imagine someone making the new page by copy-pasting the old one for... perhaps about 3 years now.
Honestly i think the 2019 grand winner is the best still
>2019 Grand Prize
>Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago.
> “Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking leaves from the front yard.
> Sir Reginald Brimwater, Guardian of the Tome of Remembrance, Herald of the Immortal Word, Voice of the Histories Both Recent and Ancient, Archivist of the Eternal Ledger, and Memory of the Empire had forgotten his quill, but he was pretty sure he got the gist of what what’s-his-face was saying.
Pretty good. :) These remind me of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams in style. I wish I knew more hilarious writers. Vonnegut is great though maybe not quite as hilarious. I've tried to read The Innocents Abroad and Confederacy of Dunces but I found myself only trudging slowly through both. I'd love your suggestions!
Check out Tom Robbins if you haven't already! Here's the opening to Jitterbug Perfume:
> THE BEET IS THE MOST INTENSE of vegetables.
> The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.
> Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
> The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip...
> The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.
> The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.
> In Europe there is grown widely a large beet they call the mangel-wurzel. Perhaps it is mangel-wurzel that we see in Rasputin. Certainly there is mangel-wurzel in the music of Wagner, although it is another composer whose name begins, B-e-e-t——.
> Of course, there are white beets, beets that ooze sugar water instead of blood, but it is the red beet with which we are concerned; the variety that blushes and swells like a hemorrhoid, a hemorrhoid for which there is no cure. (Actually, there is one remedy: commission a potter to make you a ceramic asshole—and when you aren't sitting on it, you can use it as a bowl for borscht.)
> An old Ukrainian proverb warns, "A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil."
I recommend Stanisław Lem's Cyberiad. The English translation has amazing prose and it is hilarious. I can't recommend anything else :) I like Charles Stross, good sci-fi with a satirical strike, but he's not as good with words as the authors you mention.
It's definitely a step up in terms of reader effort, but I found it worth it. It doesn't compare well to Pratchett and Adams who are more like a writer's variant of the stand-up comedian (a lot of the entries in this contest feel stylistically close to their writing). A Confederacy of Dunces instead shines in its portrayal of the comically pitiful characters within it, with John Kennedy Toole succeeding in making the cringe-worthy protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly one of the most loathsome characters I have ever come across in a novel.
Perhaps my standards are just too low, but some of these are actually quite brilliant. I laughed at this one:
> Realising that his symptoms indicated a virtually undetectable, fast acting neurotoxin, CIA coroner Quinn Abner frantically wrote up the details, lay on the floor and, as a professional courtesy, did his best to draw a chalk outline of himself.
> 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.
is both horrifying and a thing of wonder .. context is everything.
It wouldn't be out of place in one of my all time favourite books [1].
Reminds me of last 30 minutes of the film Cremaster 3, in which a man scales the inside of the Guggenheim, rock-climbing style, stopping on each floor to confront some sort a challenge from a group (line dancers, hardcore punk bands, a famous sculptor) as an abstract retelling of a Masonic origin myth.
The current title of this submission ("Worst Opening Sentences of 2022") is not quite correct: the about page [1] states that "the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels".
The opening sentence of (what would be) the worst novel is different to the worst opening sentence of a novel.
The Children's & Young Adult Literature Winner for 2022 [2] is actually a good opening sentence:
> Three bears arrived at their den to discover a yellow haired girl sleeping, and as she was neither too hot nor too cold, neither too soft nor too hard, but just right, they ate her.
My all-time favourite is the dishonourable mention for 2004 Children's Literature:
As he entered the room within which so many a wild night of their sweltering love affair had been spent, the White Rabbit regarded her with benevolent eyes, her posture such that he suspected something was wrong, but before he could speak Alice unburied her face from her trembling hands and between her intense sobs he made out the words, "I'm late . . . I'm late."
I think I have a taste for absurdist humor, because a lot of these read like openings to fantastically funny satire. At least to me.
With the exception of the Sci-Fi category -- those all read like high school pornographic fan fic. Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed in the sci-fi category. Seems like low hanging fruit. Surely they could have done better!
The worse opening sentences of what? Books? Are they named anywhere?
Edit: the books don't exist: 'Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Our whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with "It was a dark and stormy night."'
They are purposefully bad, as it's a contest where people send submissions. Most of these are "bad" because they try to pack too much into a single sentence, and the concepts are so over the top the reader would be having a hard time keeping up. Some of these are bad because of genre mismatch, for example, having gory details in a children's book.
As enkid said, they're written specifically for the contest. I think you're supposed to assume that the "bad" novel that goes with them is mostly intended to be serious, or at least that it isn't made up of non-stop slapstick humor. Most of them are parodying genre cliches, and especially the fantasy ones seem to break the fourth wall and complain about made-up words and spelling. Many of the first lines would work if the entire novel is a parody, and if the rest of the writing doesn't run out of steam and become boring.
[+] [-] rubyron|3 years ago|reply
Brilliant.
[+] [-] mrexroad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KMag|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rpastuszak|3 years ago|reply
Hard to keep track of the parentheses though as the text disappears after 3-4 lines.
I was also experimenting briefly with a graph-based text editor where o could keep my tangents in check but still have some overall structure.
[+] [-] naruhodo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aripickar|3 years ago|reply
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_Programming_Langua...
[+] [-] quickthrower2|3 years ago|reply
> If I wanted to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a dystopian YA’s protagonist, I needed several things: missing or deceased parents (check), a complicated romantic life involving multiple partners and predictable behavior (check), a tough exterior that protected my sensitive inner workings (check), and finally, a life of danger, uncertainty, and constant struggle to survive (check); it turns out, turtles are well-equipped to star in YA adventures!
This is brilliant!
[+] [-] antihero|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_common_man|3 years ago|reply
So good
[+] [-] CydeWeys|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GrayShade|3 years ago|reply
https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2022
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] senectus1|3 years ago|reply
Honestly i think the 2019 grand winner is the best still
>2019 Grand Prize
>Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago.
[+] [-] p1necone|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adalacelove|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] eatonphil|3 years ago|reply
> Sir Reginald Brimwater, Guardian of the Tome of Remembrance, Herald of the Immortal Word, Voice of the Histories Both Recent and Ancient, Archivist of the Eternal Ledger, and Memory of the Empire had forgotten his quill, but he was pretty sure he got the gist of what what’s-his-face was saying.
(From the actual 2022 page: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2022.)
Pretty good. :) These remind me of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams in style. I wish I knew more hilarious writers. Vonnegut is great though maybe not quite as hilarious. I've tried to read The Innocents Abroad and Confederacy of Dunces but I found myself only trudging slowly through both. I'd love your suggestions!
[+] [-] tspike|3 years ago|reply
> THE BEET IS THE MOST INTENSE of vegetables.
> The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.
> Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.
> The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip...
> The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.
> The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.
> In Europe there is grown widely a large beet they call the mangel-wurzel. Perhaps it is mangel-wurzel that we see in Rasputin. Certainly there is mangel-wurzel in the music of Wagner, although it is another composer whose name begins, B-e-e-t——.
> Of course, there are white beets, beets that ooze sugar water instead of blood, but it is the red beet with which we are concerned; the variety that blushes and swells like a hemorrhoid, a hemorrhoid for which there is no cure. (Actually, there is one remedy: commission a potter to make you a ceramic asshole—and when you aren't sitting on it, you can use it as a bowl for borscht.)
> An old Ukrainian proverb warns, "A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil."
> That is a risk we have to take.
[+] [-] nicopappl|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Freak_NL|3 years ago|reply
It's definitely a step up in terms of reader effort, but I found it worth it. It doesn't compare well to Pratchett and Adams who are more like a writer's variant of the stand-up comedian (a lot of the entries in this contest feel stylistically close to their writing). A Confederacy of Dunces instead shines in its portrayal of the comically pitiful characters within it, with John Kennedy Toole succeeding in making the cringe-worthy protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly one of the most loathsome characters I have ever come across in a novel.
[+] [-] ttctciyf|3 years ago|reply
FWIW, my own favourite humorous sci-fi short is R.A. Lafferty's Been a Long Long Time which can be read online: https://www.gwern.net/docs/fiction/humor/1970-lafferty.pdf
[+] [-] max-ibel|3 years ago|reply
Also, maybe "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" by G.K. Chesterton.
And of course most by P.G. Wodehouse.
[+] [-] teh_klev|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brentford_Trilogy
[+] [-] joe-collins|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NBJack|3 years ago|reply
> Realising that his symptoms indicated a virtually undetectable, fast acting neurotoxin, CIA coroner Quinn Abner frantically wrote up the details, lay on the floor and, as a professional courtesy, did his best to draw a chalk outline of himself.
[+] [-] defrost|3 years ago|reply
> 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.
is both horrifying and a thing of wonder .. context is everything.
It wouldn't be out of place in one of my all time favourite books [1].
[1] http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/kleinz.html
[+] [-] zimpenfish|3 years ago|reply
[1] http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.h...
[+] [-] camoufleur|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkerside|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jamessb|3 years ago|reply
The opening sentence of (what would be) the worst novel is different to the worst opening sentence of a novel.
The Children's & Young Adult Literature Winner for 2022 [2] is actually a good opening sentence:
> Three bears arrived at their den to discover a yellow haired girl sleeping, and as she was neither too hot nor too cold, neither too soft nor too hard, but just right, they ate her.
[1]: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/about
[2]: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2022
[+] [-] bostik|3 years ago|reply
As he entered the room within which so many a wild night of their sweltering love affair had been spent, the White Rabbit regarded her with benevolent eyes, her posture such that he suspected something was wrong, but before he could speak Alice unburied her face from her trembling hands and between her intense sobs he made out the words, "I'm late . . . I'm late."
Perfect. Simply perfect.
[+] [-] enkid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astrange|3 years ago|reply
http://adamcadre.ac/22lyttle.html
[+] [-] dbingham|3 years ago|reply
With the exception of the Sci-Fi category -- those all read like high school pornographic fan fic. Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed in the sci-fi category. Seems like low hanging fruit. Surely they could have done better!
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] einpoklum|3 years ago|reply
"I consider it necessary today to speak again about the tragic events in Donbass and the key aspects of ensuring the security of Russia."
(https://theprint.in/world/full-text-of-vladimir-putins-speec...)
[+] [-] petecooper|3 years ago|reply
https://literaryreview.co.uk/bad-sex-in-fiction-award
[+] [-] mayagerard0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frozenbit|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azangru|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noja|3 years ago|reply
Edit: the books don't exist: 'Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Our whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with "It was a dark and stormy night."'
[+] [-] mminer237|3 years ago|reply
Netflix made a movie that is literally this exact plot.
[+] [-] a_c|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enkid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbg721|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirekrusin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jvandonsel|3 years ago|reply
The alternative is the much funnier Lyttle Lytton Contest: http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html
[+] [-] chungy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wodenokoto|3 years ago|reply
I wished for more context on more of these sentences (like what is the book about, and how old was the author writing this in earnest)
https://lithub.com/this-years-very-worst-opening-sentence-is...