Hallowe'en Worst Novel Opening Contest

[Lykaios]

I just noticed that we aren’t doing anything fun and productive for this spooky time of the year, and that we usually do, so this is me being useful and all that lark for once. :)

In my creative writing lectures, we’re usually set a short exercise at the beginning of the lecture, to do in the event we get bored or after the lecture’s over. They don’t make you write lots, but they do usually make you think and have to fiddle around, which is rather fun. So I thought I’d steal one of these little tasks for a quick contest, as Nano is coming up in a week and I don’t really want to run a contest into November.

Anyway, so some of you may have heard that this:
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
~Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830) opening is famously one of the worst opening sentences for a novel ever? In honour of this awful opening, I would like you to write the worst possible opening sentence you can.

So break the rules – add unimportant or redundant information, throw in your horrendous adjectives, make your dialogue tags long, use the good old comma splice. It can be funny, silly, outrageous, serious, anything you like, but it must have a spooky or Hallowe’en-y theme or element to it, to be entered. For some examples, see here (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011.htm). (If you copy one of these, I will know, btw)

As this is a very short and simple contest, I’ll be judging, so the results can be posted quickly and not get in the way of Nano. So please send your entry to me via PM. Also, please make sure it is only one sentence. Also, no chatspeak, etc.

Contest closes at midnight (GMT) on the 31st of October.

There will be three winners and they will receive a thanks point from me and a silly doodle I will draw, because I haven't drawn in ages and I can't afford real prizes. :3

Any questions, post below. I hope as many people as possible will enter this – it really is just something quick, so won’t take up hours or days of your time, just a few minutes. :)


Entrants (bold means I have received your entry):
Iridescence
thecollector
Rose
Dabs
lostbookworm
Mimzy
charns
lalodragon
Bookworm
Wolfie
Julian
Thoth
Orion Rising
Jack

[Iridescence]

This sounds quite fun. Good idea, Lily.

[thecollector]

I'm in. xD This is going to be so much fun. :)

[Rose]

You already know I'm in, but I'll post here just to make it official.

[Dabs]

I'm so doing this. PREPARE TO RECEIVE MY ENTRY!

[lostbookworm]

Despite also having to write SBS, I will be doing this.

[Mimzy]

Totally doing it! Here's my entry: The butler bulked before me, trivializing about how stupid I was for not coming sooner, he even captured my coat and adhered it on the coat hanger (and of course affirmed his amour for penny collections) he then reminded me I was late, and so I insled off with him pointing at his watch and talking about his love for penny collections.

[Lykaios]

Mimzy - thank you! But you need to PM me your entry, not post it here.

[Lykaios]

*pokes everyone*

I so far have two entries, and a third in this thread that needs to be sent to me *looks at Mimzy*

C'mon guys! Where are you all? This is easy and won't talk you any longer than twenty minutes at the most! I want lots and lots and lots of entries! :D

Three days left!

[Rose]

I finished mine, but I'm kinda worried about the length. There's no limit, right? As long as it's not TOO huge. Ah, to hell with it. I'm just gonna send it over, Miss Lilikinz. <3

[Lykaios]

It's fine Rose, no worries! The point of this is that it's supposed to be bad, so it really doesn't matter. :)

[Rose]

Awesomeful.

/spam.

[lostbookworm]

Mines one of the sent ones, so I don't need to worry.

[charns]

This sounds like fun; count me in ;)

[lalodragon]

I'm in, you know. I've sent it.

[bookworm]

I'm doing it. As if I need to enter a contest to write a bad sentence.

[Julian]

Sorry, Lyka! Thought I already registered myself!


Needless to say, Imma participate.

[Lykaios]

Yay! :D

/superexcitednessohyeah

[OrionRising]

Count Me In.

I <3 halloween

[Faust]

I really wish I could enter but I'll be far too busy. Maybe next time.

[bookworm]

It's just one sentence, Faust!

[Dabs]

I really wish I could enter but I'll be far too busy. Maybe next time.

It took me five minutes to write my sentence, if that. You can definitely participate!

[Rose]

without any exclamation marks - Cal, go write something.

[Jack]

I'm doing this and I'm sending you my sentence now.

[Iridescence]

Huuurrrr submitted

[Lykaios]

Okee, so this was seriously fun to judge, but incredibly hard to chose winners for. I got eleven entries in the end, which I think may be a competition record here! :D

Anyway, without further ado:

First place goes to:

Jack:Every single house looked scary, like the scariest street anyone had ever seen; tiled roofs, scary windows, a long cobbled street that stretched into the scary darkness beyond, like a cave or something else similarly scary, perhaps an abandoned theme park or an abandoned manor (because abandoned things are very scary, probably because of the absence of people and the silence that such absence brings, and of course in silence even the tiniest noise sparks a sort of scary fear in your heart, like your heart is skipping a beat or a jump or whatever the heart does) or maybe the jaws of a great white shark because jaws are scary and sharks are scary, so the jaws of a shark are superbly scary in their aesthetic, and jaws lead into the mouth which is also dark like a cave, so basically the end of the street looked like a cave.
Second place:

Wolfie:The small child floated, nonplussed, in the air, as the red-eyed, see-through ghost thing stood, before her, quivering in fear, its ice cream, only half eaten, melting on the floor, where it fell, and the girl said, "Boo," and the ghost screamed in terror, "Ah."
And third place (two winners because I couldn't decide):

Thoth:'Twas a night before a few days before Halloween, and it was rainy and spooky.

and Rose:Bart crossed his arms in a crisscross shape - like a tangled snake in mid august - as he stood on the balcony in Furantonious St. and gazed at the sunset, then felt slightly uncomfortable when a chill ran across his shoulders, same feeling that was supposed to take over him when his mom insulted him once, though, all he could do, back then, was think how she never saw the irony in calling him son-of-a-bitch and chuckle darkly like Edward Cullen (but then he remembered that she’s a blonde woman so he couldn’t really blame her) – thinking of his mom’s wrinkled face and her weird expressions while squeezing pimples every night before going to sleep, as he was eyeing the falling sun, reminded him that it was time to get ready for some serious business; carving one-toothed-smiles into half-rotten pumpkins like people usually do to watermelons, melons, oranges, or any other rounded fruit, even like tomatoes for example, in cook-shows.
You guys all get silly drawings/paintings from me and a thanks point! (if you have any special requests, I'm happy to accept them, depending on whether or not I can draw it) :)

Everyone else's entries here:

Bookworm:Boo boo boo I love you, but then you turn around and look at me with jelly smeary green neon eyes, like, popping in and out, and I start having superdoubts like that muscled superman stuff; the only thing that saves me in this liquorice dunglike darkness full of shadows is the fact I never liked badminton after all.
Lalodragon:The monstrous eyes glowed the xanthie color of Kraft macaroni and cheese, but were the size of large Dominos pizzas, with onion rings for irises and Thin Mint cookies for pupils-- and they were looking directly at my growling stomach.
Charns:In the middle of the thundering rainstorm and waves after waves of showering rain--where I stood in the centre of the aftermath of the havoc I had caused and bathed in the coating of blood illuminated by the occasional sparks of lightning spilled over the windows--I felt the rumbles of an emerging laughter and a twisted grin creep onto my lips.
Iridescence:"I shall begin this gristly account with a warning most dire: if you are of feeble and craven mind, with a tendency toward starting awake in the midst of the night and saying prayers feverishly beneath your breath whilst fingering the rosary beads you wear round your neck and staring about your room with wide, petrified eyes, your skin blanched and perspiring, this tale will only serve to enhance this tendency; furthermore, if you feel vastly uncomfortable in the presence of unpleasant persons such as vampyres, lycanthropes, hellion, malignant spectres, fiendish daemons, the waking dead, and other apparitions of that nature, I further advise you to close your ears to this narration; and, if you are given to fainting dead away at the merest mention of manslaughter, profuse bloodshed, hangings, decapitations, sadistic torture, disembowelment, and other such unfortunate occurrences, perhaps it would be better if you rose quietly, closed this tome, and backed away with greatly exaggerated slowness."
Dabs:The knife, which dripped with the blood of her husband—blood that flowed like tears down a fallen angel’s cheeks—and was rusted to such a deathly brown color that it seemed to overtake her quivering soul as she stared into it, fell from her hand and clashed thunderously against the finely finished wooden floor, bouncing once before finally settling just a centimeter away from the pale, lifeless face of the man to whom she had been betrothed… until now, until this horror of a night.
Julian:It all happened last Halloween night, when I chanted a spell, from an old spooky spell book Shirley, my best friend, had bought, with my friends in an old haunted manor and died ; my shackled spirit thrown away from its physical container.
Lostbookworm:Soulless, mindless armies of rotting flesh marched towards me; there I was, armed with only a meat cleaver and a baseball bat, about to fend for my life against thousands, possibly millions of hungry zombies.


Thank you everyone, sosososo much for entering! :D

[Julian]

Jack transformed redundancy to a whole new level xP.

[FayGee]

OMG They were all so awesome!!! Congrats Jack, Wolfie, Thoth and Rose, and everyone else who participated! :D

[Dabs]

I loved Thoth's, like I laugh-out-loud loved it.

[Rose]

Jack, that is epic.

[lostbookworm]

Jack's, you are brilliant.

[Julian]

lOL At Thot's, too.

[Iridescence]

That last line of Jack's is so perfect. I went, "HA!" and my mum told me to shut up and do my homework.

Congrats you other lovely peoples!

[Jack]

I came.
I saw
I conquered.
What do I win? I didn't even read the first post. <3

EDIT: Finally being a terrible writer came in handy.

[Carraka]

Pfft, I could've written something better.

[FayGee]

You mean worse. :P