It was a dark and stormy night

That hackneyed line has many people thinking only of Snoopy sitting atop his doghouse typing his Great American novel. The actual quote is, let's just say, a tad longer and less poetic, and thanks to the English Department at San Jose State University, one of the most infamous examples of "wretched writing." The full quote reads:

"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)

Inspired by that quote, the good folks at SJSU decided to sponsor an annual literary competition for the worst opening sentence to a hypothetically awful novel. This bad writing competition began over twenty years ago and continues to attract submissions by thousands of contestants worldwide who tend to fall into two classes (according to Scott Rice the professor who started it all): "good writers pretending to be bad writers, and bad writers pretending to be good writers pretending to be bad writers."

Here is the original winning entry from 1983:

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.

--Gail Cain, San Francisco, California (1983 Winner)

Here are a few other winners in years to follow:

As the fading light of a dying day filtered through the window blinds, Roger stood over his victim with a smoking .45, surprised at the serenity that filled him after pumping six slugs into the bloodless tyrant that mocked him day after day, and then he shuffled out of the office with one last look back at the shattered computer terminal lying there like a silicon armadillo left to rot on the information superhighway.

--Larry Brill, Austin, Texas (1994 Winner)

"Ace, watch your head!" hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow provocatively, through red, full, sensuous lips, but he couldn't you know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning.

--Janice Estey, Aspen, Colorado (1996 Winner)

The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows slipping off land's end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in their pints.

--Gary Dahl, Los Gatos, CA (2000 Winner)

Not all entries are so bloated. There are occasional gems achieved with a dozen words or less:

I was a fifty-four-year-old male virgin but I'm all right now.
--Arden Ohl, Modesto, California

The aliens bent over backwards, literally, to please their visitors.
--Jane Amanda Espenson, Berkeley, California

Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens.
--Warren Tupper Way, Wayzata, Wisconsin

She was in tropical heat.
--Richard Lowe, Wilmington, Delaware

So who the hell was Bulwer-Lytton, you ask. He was a contemporary of Charles Dickens and was widely read in his time, the previous excruciating example of purple prose notwithstanding.

Poor fellow, I thought, when I learned this. He coughs up that opening line and then Dickens comes along and begins publishing such memorable beginnings as:

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
--David Copperfield (1849)

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
--A Christmas Carol (1843)

Now, what I want is, Facts.
--Hard Times (1854)

And then, of course, how can Bulwer-Lytton ever hope to compete with the unforgettable beginning to "A Tale of Two Cities?"

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Except, little did I realize, the good Mr. Dickens did not actually stop there. Inspired perhaps by Bulwer-Lytton, and maybe wishing to promote his own "bad writing" literary contest one day, he went on to finish his sentence as follows:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859)

Give the man his first place prize.