It was a dark and stormy night . . .

29.58N, 95.21W ^ | 7/17/04 | Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

[Xenalyte]

Since 1982, the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. The BLFC was the brainchild (or Rosemary's baby) of Professor Scott Rice, whose graduate school excavations unearthed the source of the line "It was a dark and stormy night." Sentenced to write a seminar paper on a minor Victorian novelist, he chose the man with the funny hyphenated name, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who was best known for perpetrating The Last Days of Pompeii, Eugene Aram, Rienzi, The Caxtons, The Coming Race, and--not least--Paul Clifford, whose famous opener has been plagiarized repeatedly by Snoopy.

[Xenalyte]

Since it's a slow news day, and a lazy Saturday . . . let's either write our own best Bulwer-Lyttonian lines, or post our favorites from other works. (BLs accepted, of course.)

[Petronski]

Regret dripped from his mouth like spoiled sour cream...

Yep, that's bad.

[Xenalyte]

Here, I'll go first (yes, it was once my tagline, but it's still funny for a' that):

It was nearly midnight before we scraped Uncle Harry off the dining-room table.

[Xenalyte]

Okay, you go first. That one's an ickily evocative visual!

[Petronski]

Sadie had a smile that revealed the profoundly ugly teeth--no wonder her gums were receding.

[Xenalyte]

"Was it necessary," asked the judge as he leaned over the bench, "to produce this entire lake in evidence?"

[Xenalyte]

So close she could play the orange sauce to my duck, the sultry blonde tickled the back of my neck and whispered, "I know all the words to 'Copacabana.'"

[annyokie]

Simone sighed and filed her nails the afternoon the camel died.

This had all the makings yet another in a seemingly endless series of dreary, disaster-ridden holidays with Nigel.

[Petronski]

The Double Q ranch didn't have any cattle anymore, the giant sand lobsters had seen to that.

[sourcery]

From various liberal sources:

• It's all Bush's fault.
• It's for the children.
• Women and children will be hit the hardest.
• Raising taxes will help the economy and provide more jobs.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

“The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers,pushed through the castle window,revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog’s deception, screaming madly, “You lied!”

[Petronski]

Prostitution had been Leslie's life-long dream, and he was only fourteen.

[annyokie]

Roxanne thought yet again about how to remove those bloodstains in the carpet.

[KarlInOhio]

The morning sun danced over the black pants suit that laid crumpled on the floor after a night of passion....

(And yes it is a horror novel)

[VeritatisSplendor]

"Early on the morning of August 19, 1946, I was born under a clear sky after a violent summer storm to a widowed mother in the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, a town of about six thousand in southwest Arkansas, thirty-three miles east of the Texas border at Texarkana."

[Petronski]

His career faltering in a languid pool of its own turgid inertia, Chester Fields, Attorney at Law, thumbed recklessly through the want ads, slurping thoughtlessly from a tepid glass of his own melancholia.

[reagan_fanatic]

Mary drew back to shades to reveal a bright moon in the dark night sky, which makes sense because one would not find the sun there due to the fact it was shining on the other side of the World right now, she reasoned.

[Petronski]

Fire Island was always a bit boring in late August, but if Lance was having such a bad time, how could he explain his uncomfortable gait . . . or that horrible smell?

[KarlInOhio]

"Early on the morning of August 19, 1946, I was born under ...

I have trouble believing any part of your story.

[DumpsterDiver]

Regret dripped from his mouth like spoiled sour cream...

That was gross. :)

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
-- Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring, MD

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
--Chuck Smith, Woodbridge, VA

Similes from High School Essays