“It was a dark and stormy night…”
Everybody knows this opening line. It’s famous, infamous, and considered terribly, terribly cliché by the average creative writing professor. But did you know that it inspired one of the more popular annual writing contests, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest? It’s a contest where the (intentionally) worst written opening sentence to The Most Terrible Novel of All Time wins. The 2011 winners have already been announced–see the 2011 grand prize winner’s terrible opening sentence and the various genre winners for a good laugh–but I MUST not let another year pass without submitting myself. I love writing contests that demand creativity!
Prize: $250 and lifelong international bragging rights.
Hannah Karena Jones 