It was a dark and stormy night.

Annachie wrote:There's also an international competition every year based on it.

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Two of my favorite entries from past Bulwer-Lytton contests;

"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 !"

and

The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarous tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong, clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, “Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you’ll feel my steel through your last meal.”

Goodness gracious me! It's the literary equivalent of the Darwin Awards!

Peter2 wrote:Goodness gracious me! It's the literary equivalent of the Darwin Awards!

What else should you expect when you cut junkies off from their regular doses of snippets? Odd behavior and the high jacking of threads is the natural result.

USMA74 wrote:

Peter2 wrote:Goodness gracious me! It's the literary equivalent of the Darwin Awards!

What else should you expect when you cut junkies off from their regular doses of snippets? Odd behavior and the high jacking of threads is the natural result.

Yes indeed. You know the old saying You don't have to be mad to work here, but if you are, it helps!? I worked in a Research Laboratory for many years, and I remember overhearing a remark about an event that had been regarded by HR with a degree of bemusement: – "Their problem is that in a building staffed largely by people who are paid for original thought, you tend to get original actions to go with them." Before anyone asks, I decline to go into details – no names, no pack drill!
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Tonto Silerheels wrote:Has anyone else noticed that Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford and David Weber's How Firm a Foundation both start, "It was a dark and stormy night?"

~Tonto

A friend is doing an on-line degree (with the Open University)

He regularly has difficulty starting his essays so I have advised him to keep all the "traditional" starts to hand.
1) "Once upon a time", then, as he's a musician
2) "Woke up this morning", then the biblical
3) "In the beginning was the Word" and more recent and as his degree is history
4) "Long ago and far away" and then back to the original
5) "It was a dark and stormy night"

Gets him a kick-off and can always be deleted before submission.

chrisd wrote:

Tonto Silerheels wrote:Has anyone else noticed that Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Paul Clifford and David Weber's How Firm a Foundation both start, "It was a dark and stormy night?"

~Tonto

A friend is doing an on-line degree (with the Open University)

He regularly has difficulty starting his essays so I have advised him to keep all the "traditional" starts to hand.
1) "Once upon a time", then, as he's a musician
2) "Woke up this morning", then the biblical
3) "In the beginning was the Word" and more recent and as his degree is history
4) "Long ago and far away" and then back to the original
5) "It was a dark and stormy night"

Gets him a kick-off and can always be deleted before submission.

You forgot the opening for military fairytales. No sh!t, this actually happened.

saber964 wrote:You forgot the opening for military fairytales. No sh!t, this actually happened.

Field and Stream used to have a feature for hunting stories that began, "There I was ..."

Weird Harold wrote:

saber964 wrote:You forgot the opening for military fairytales. No sh!t, this actually happened.

Field and Stream used to have a feature for hunting stories that began, "There I was ..."

Patrick McManus' story My First Deer.

saber964 wrote:

chrisd wrote: A friend is doing an on-line degree (with the Open University)

He regularly has difficulty starting his essays so I have advised him to keep all the "traditional" starts to hand.
1) "Once upon a time", then, as he's a musician
2) "Woke up this morning", then the biblical
3) "In the beginning was the Word" and more recent and as his degree is history
4) "Long ago and far away" and then back to the original
5) "It was a dark and stormy night"

Gets him a kick-off and can always be deleted before submission.

You forgot the opening for military fairytales. No sh!t, this actually happened.

Or the RAF "Upside down, Nothing on the clock and still climbing . . . . . "