4 ms·
I have complicated feelings about the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. On the one hand, from a lighthearted perspective, it's quite funny and I enjoy reading the
by kibwen 4y ago
I have complicated feelings about the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. On the one hand, from a lighthearted perspective, it's quite funny and I enjoy reading the absurdist entries. On the other hand, I can't help but sense an undercurrent of wannabe-elitism from people who doth protest too much about "It was a dark and stormy night", in the same way that beginner programmers will fixate on minutiae like indentation or naming conventions in an attempt to gain social status among their peers. Like, sure, it's not the most gripping opening sentence in history. But the fact remains that if you took a good author and forced them to use it, they could still write a good book. (That might be an interesting contest in its own right.) Be careful not to get overfixated on the meme.
- themadturk 4y agoBulwer-Lytton was, in his time, a best-selling author, and one wonders how well he'd be remembered now if not for the opening words of Snoopy's ever-beginning novel in the Peanuts comic strip, which (if I am not mistaken, and it likely is I am, but I don't care because this my comment) served as one of perhaps many inspirations for the opening line contest, which is of course as far as Snoopy ever got, being a better Sopwith Camel fighter pilot, vulture imitator and serial doghouse-layer uponer than he was a novelist.
- mkehrt 4y agoBut it's "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."