It was a Dark and Stormy Night

Shame on me for missing the always awesome Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest last week. This, of course, is the contest that "honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton", the guy who actually did start a novel with "It was a dark and stormy night".



The rules of the contest are simple: Just come up with the worst possible opening sentence for a novel. This years winner was David McKenzie of Federal Way, WA...

"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests."

The Runner-ups can be read here.