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2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Congratulations, Molly Ringle! To see her entry and the runners-up, click here.

For those unfamiliar with this award, it is given for the 'best' made-up bad opening sentence for a novel. The award is named after Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who was the first to use the "It was a dark and stormy night..." opening. The aim is to deliberately produce the kind of purple, pompous and generally terrible prose that tries to be profound and/or original when written in earnest but only manages to be unintentionally funny. Here is the full sentence:

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.
From Paul Clifford by Bulwer-Lytton.

Now if only there was a William Topaz MacGonagall award, I would gladly participate...
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