I’m unsure of how many people are explicitly aware of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, but the general idea is people submit introductory one-liner sentences that are meant to be written as poorly as possible, with awards given to the best worst submissions in any year.
I’ve linked to the winner’s catalogue. Any particular blurbs stand out to you? Any examples from your own work?
These are actually hilarious, and I could see them actually being in a comedy novel inspired by Pratchett or Adams.
Seems like it’s actually less of the “worst opener” and more like “hilariously off kilter opener that is a run on sentence”.
I suppose that’s because if it is written poorly enough to truly be the "worst opener " it wouldn’t be selected as a finalist.
Yeap!
Crafting a subjectively terrible one-liner in a good way requires a good amount of experience. It’s not enough to just cobble words together to have something that’s “objectively” bad writing, but it requires putting together some really disparate ideas together into something that, for the most part, would absolutely not fly in most settings, but are absolutely hilarious in the right one.
The 2012 winner for example is a viscerally disgusting image, but it reveals so much about the character involved (and the narrator, if they aren’t the same person).