The Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest is a hilarious gem of sentences
Find the worst opening sentence to the worst novel never written.
The Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest is a hilarious gem of sentences to find the worst opening sentence of an imagined novel.
The competition is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, a Victorian novelist who wrote what is widely regarded as one of the worst opening sentences in the English language: “It was a dark and stormy night.”
The contest awards prizes to the best entries that are as bad or worse than his.
I highly recommend reading some of the entries. In addition to being a fun exercise in creative writing, the contest encourages readers to think critically about literature and how authors craft sentences to introduce their stories. It also helps writers understand how not to write awkward.