It was a dark and stormy night – 2012 edition

Every year when we read the winning entry of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest we think we’ll remember to enter the next year, but we always forget. I’ve talked about this contest before.

To remind you, the point of the contest is to “honor” the author of the original worst opening line in publishing history.

“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.”

-by Edward George Bulwer-Lytto

This year’s winner is delightfully, outrageously awful.

As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting.

-by Cathy Bryant of Manchester, England

You’ll have to agree, that’s pretty bad. I think this one is actually better, though it was the winner of the crime category.

She slinked through my door wearing a dress that looked like it had been painted on … not with good paint, like Behr or Sherwin-Williams, but with that watered-down stuff that bubbles up right away if you don’t prime the surface before you slap it on, and – just like that cheap paint – the dress needed two more coats to cover her.

— Sue Fondrie, Appleton, WI

There are so many guffaw inducing winners here. Hop over there and read them all. You’ll laugh. I promise.

Maybe next year we’ll all remember to enter.