If you've never heard of this contest, you've been missing a really good thing. This is a contest for people to write the worst opening sentence they can think of for a novel. I didn't think this year's entries were as good as last years, but there are still some really funny ones.
Here are a few of my favorites:
2007 Winner: Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee.
Jim Gleason, Madison, WI
"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"
Stuart Vasepuru Edinburgh, Scotland, 2006
Winner: Detective Fiction: It was a dreary Monday in September when Constable Lightspeed came across the rotting corpse that resembled one of those zombies from Michael Jackson's "Thriller," except that it was lying down and not performing the electric slide.
Derek Fisher Ottawa, ON, 2006
Winner: Romance: Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.
Dennis Barry Dothan, AL 2006
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