I got bored today, and thought it might be fun to try to come up with the worst possible opening sentence/bit of dialog one could imagine for a fiction novel. Here are some of my offerings – my currently non-published ones, I should add. Feel free to comment and post your own. We could wind up with something truly awful. The only limitation is your imagination. As a huge fan of spectacularly bad writing, I hope this becomes a very long thread and goes viral. Feel free to tweet it long and hard.

 

“It was a dark and stormy knight,” the Princess confessed, her virtue in tatters along with her dignity.

“I swear quantitative easing isn’t just a bullshit way of saying taking all your money and giving it to my rich friends,” Ben  offered, fidgeting with his beard in mock sincerity.

“Don’t worry, he’ll stop when he’s finished,” Miriam assured Tom, who was clearly troubled by Spot’s unrequited love for his pant leg.

“Are you sure you’re a doctor?” Marty asked, concerned about the dentist’s request that he remove his underwear.

“Vampires all suck,” Mona exclaimed in frustration over her odd visitor’s reluctance to take her then and there.

“Ah have always retied on the laces of Sketchers,” Blanche declared rebelliously, shifting her feet as the streetcar swayed down the track like a boozy debutant on prom night.

“It may taste like chicken, but it looks like chick!” Edgar spat, doing his best Perez Hilton impression.

“I see red people…” Tommy whispered in horror, trying to describe the most disturbing aspect of his unusual form of retinal dysfunction.

“Piglet looked at little Johnny, and confessed – ‘I suffer from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia – fear of long words’,” Father exclaimed in a pretend gruff voice, before adding, “which is why Daddy drinks whenever you cry.”

You get the drift. It doesn’t have to be dialog. You can go narrative, although some might not get whether you’re kidding. I’m almost tempted to simply collect everything that comes in and use it as the basis for my next magnum opus, but I’ll resist. Mostly.

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Comments

  1. RightSedFred
    Mon 27th Jun 2011 at 3:46 pm

    Try this:

    “Mauve is the color of our disco tent,” Sherri gushed, eager for the dancing to begin.

    Reply
  2. Mon 27th Jun 2011 at 6:08 pm

    “That’s not shit on the floor, it’s a piece of chicken,” the chef said, fondling a well used pooper scooper. “At least I’m assuming it’s not shit. But enough about that, have you seen our lunch special?” I backed off then. But something about the chef’s defensiveness would bring me back to his establishment. And this is where our story begins.

    Reply
  3. Mon 27th Jun 2011 at 7:50 pm

    And then the year came to a bitter and cold end. He would have to purchase more calendars. And this made him grumpy. But not as grumpy as the concept of 18-month calendars.

    Reply
  4. Simone
    Mon 27th Jun 2011 at 8:36 pm

    “Because I can,” spake Rusty, the talking dog.

    Reply
  5. Newman
    Mon 27th Jun 2011 at 8:43 pm

    “It’s all about the pie,” leered Tony as he tossed the uneven disk of dough high into the air.

    Reply
  6. Clyde
    Tue 28th Jun 2011 at 4:44 pm

    “I’ll only put in the tip,” Sam promised, holding his fork at the ready. Nora regarded him with skepticism. Sam did his best to look honest.

    Reply
  7. Fri 01st Jul 2011 at 8:26 pm

    f7WIdK http://fhT2m8CsJk4b0Spe71mfuXz.com

    Reply
  8. Sat 02nd Jul 2011 at 10:37 pm

    “Your it’s best friend,” he said, and his blue eyes, which were not sky blue but light navy blue like a faded Civil War uniform jacket, even though he was from another dimension, twinkled.

    Reply
  9. Sun 03rd Jul 2011 at 5:10 am

    Even though he could only feel with the receptor pods on his tongue, Vitruvius felt the tension in the air, tension like a KNIFE.

    Reply
  10. Sun 17th Jul 2011 at 9:25 pm

    What words..

    Reply
  11. Tue 19th Jul 2011 at 5:40 am

    I’m adding your blog’s rss feed so that I can see your new posts. Continue the good work!

    Reply
  12. Tue 19th Jul 2011 at 3:01 pm

    “Now we are going back to the beginning, to the story before the story, which is the background for this story – but only in the primordial and ethereal kind of way, like … like a butterfly who flutters its wings and a million miles a way a thunderstorm suddenly breaks out for no inexplicable reason, which reminds me ….”

    Though I must admit that some of your examples I’d actually wanna read.

    Reply
    • Russell Blake  –  Tue 19th Jul 2011 at 3:29 pm

      Staying on your meds is paramount to being a gazillion selling author.

      Reply
  13. Tue 19th Jul 2011 at 3:24 pm

    How are you, I was surfing the web and I found your website from another site. I read a few of your posts and think they are nicely written. Thank you, I will try to visit your homepage soon.

    Reply
  14. Tue 19th Jul 2011 at 3:35 pm

    Thanks for posting, I like this blog!

    Reply
    • Russell Blake  –  Tue 19th Jul 2011 at 4:16 pm

      I’m glad you like it, just as I enjoy discovering the benefits of coconut oil. It’s all good.

      Reply
  15. Tue 19th Jul 2011 at 8:39 pm

    Hey admin, nice job with the blog posts. It was actually so refreshing to read through something interesting on a blog. There are so many blogs out there that are full of gibberish.

    Reply
  16. Wed 20th Jul 2011 at 4:29 pm

    I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. Cheers!

    Reply
  17. Wed 20th Jul 2011 at 7:02 pm

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    Reply
  18. Wed 27th Jul 2011 at 1:47 am

    I don’t even know how I got here, but I thought this post was pretty good. Cheers!

    Reply
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