This is topic Best of the worst in forum Grist for the Mill at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.


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Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
 
Just for fun. State a genre and post your worst opening line.

Look here for an example of what I mean.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm

Each genre has its own stereotypes so have fun with that. Your goal is to waste five minutes and make us laugh. It actually takes a reasonable understanding of the craft to create one that is truly awful.

We'll judge the best by round of applause, or... ok I'll work on that.



 


Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
 
Children's Books (life lessons)

Once upon a time there lived fifteen bears, momma bear, daddy bear and thirteen baby bears all born the same day some months after mommy bear had, in an attempt to end her unbearable existence, over-dosed on fertility pills and then lapped up an entire six-pack she had swiped from the back of a inattentive fisherman’s pick-up and hauled off to the wrong neck of the woods.

[This message has been edited by tnwilz (edited February 26, 2009).]
 


Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
 
Fable

In the era before the one today known as the Age of Intelligent Reason and Modern Enlightenment, there came along a reluctant prophet, who in his naively unenlightened way accidently founded it all, known as Hieroptolemy.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited February 26, 2009).]
 


Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :
 
Fantasy

It was a dark and stormy night, suddenly a crash went outside the prince’s door; a troll let out high pitch scream that was sounding like a cross between a fire engine siren and finger nails going down a chalk board.
 


Posted by bemused (Member # 8465) on :
 
SciFi

It had been nine and a quarter quarnz since the Relniks had last traversed the Gorab expanse, and the stalwart Samson Quazer was waiting nervously but brave at the edge of the expanse at the helm of his celestial sailor the Astron 5000, anxiously anticipating with heroism a message report to come across the technobab systems checker.
 


Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
 
Sci-Fi

I woke up, floating in the blazing white light toward a filthy-gray slot, where only a face with bulging glasses was there to welcome me.
 


Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :
 
Pulp Urban SF

Steam billowing from the bloody wound as if from the fresh cowpat of an overfed Holstein on a frigid winter morning, Z'zborg withdrew his N'nkalik standard issue atom lance from the man's chest and watched with satisfaction as he toppled backwards, gasping completely unlike a legless cat trying to run a marathon.


 


Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
 
Inart you cheated, you're not supposed to drop acid first, that makes it too easy.
 
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
 
Hey, you want cliche or what?

Besides, I don't touch acid. (With this bug, I don't need to.)
 


Posted by Unwritten (Member # 7960) on :
 
Ummm...pick a genre, any genre. It's a generic genre:

Katerina Stasa von Heckett awoke from the misty dream with a start, with a frightened expression on her face and the uncomfortable knowledge that someone had been trying to tell her something incredibly important, but the last tendrils of the dream silently vanished when she fell back asleep, and when she woke, she forgot she'd ever even dreamed--though much later on, she would wish she had remembered.

I added the POV violation for you IB, and the "silently" was for you BC. Sadly, I couldn't figure out how to make it swirl. Enjoy!

[This message has been edited by Unwritten (edited February 26, 2009).]
 


Posted by satate (Member # 8082) on :
 
Fantasy

Joiengelaiew woke up with a start as she noticed the tall, snowy bearded, long nosed, long nailed wizard grinning with long blue robes and a pointed star wand, but she failed to see the equally ugly, horned, warty, green overly large giimesquat that hopped in a corner and said ribbit.
 


Posted by BoredCrow (Member # 5675) on :
 
Fantasy.
Sharilla ignored the herd she was supposed to be guarding, dreaming of a dramatic destiny that would answer the latent power pulsing within her, address the puzzling prophecy, rid her of her terrible adopted parents, and explain the mysterious crown birthmark in the center of her forehead; but first, she must defeat the horrid monsters attacking her village even though she was only armed with a half-eaten rutebega, a broken alarm clock, and the urn full of the ashes of her beloved cow Spot.
 
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
 
I wasn't making that one up, I read it.
 
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
 
But it doesn't belong here.
 
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
 
You coulda censored it.

Note from Kathleen: I did.

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 27, 2009).]
 


Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
 
PS aren't you up really late?

Note from Kathleen: maybe that's why I'm so cranky!

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited February 27, 2009).]
 


Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
 
Detective story.

From the moment she walked into my office I knew my life would never be the same – how could it, because even if she was looking for the dermatologists clinic two doors down (which it later turned out she was) I could never get that 17 seconds back, not now, not in the future, since they had spiraled down the drain of time like so much spit and used toothpaste and that tinge of red that made you think you should go see your dentist.
 


Posted by melme54 (Member # 8482) on :
 
Comedy of manners:

As he waited for his new, boorishly unrefined friend, Matthew, to return home from visiting his dreadfully sick Uncle George, pampered playboy John von Giggingham impatiently lounged upon the tacky, brocaded settee with one leg casually dangling over the arm, indulging in another lavishly buttered scone while he openly admired Matthew's delightfully charming sister Amelia as she made her way serenely through the cultivated yet lush garden just outside the open french window.

[This message has been edited by melme54 (edited February 27, 2009).]
 


Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
 
Memoir

Yeah, well, I was--you know; I was five years old--when pressed and pushed and jostled and indifferently ignored by rambunctious kids heads-and-shoulders bigger than me, at the Boca Chica Petty Officer's Club, in breathless anxiety that turned to full panic as I waited my turn to get a mesh Christmas stocking, half as tall as I was, from Santa bulging with hard candy and plastic toys--the first time I feinted in a crowd, but turned away after recovering my senses still standing upright in the crush.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited February 27, 2009).]
 


Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
 
I still laugh every time I read that Inart, it's so weird. Most of them are really funny though. You guys are quite good at bad writing.
 
Posted by shimiqua (Member # 7760) on :
 
Romance?

In the darkness, light becomes darkness, and in the light, darkness was invisible, so as it was the love between Henrick and his lover, a buxoum brunette, unnaturally dyed, and lover of all things organic, besides chicken.
 


Posted by melme54 (Member # 8482) on :
 
shimiqua, LOVE IT!! I lol-ed!
 
Posted by tnwilz (Member # 4080) on :
 
Fantasy

Grundig the arch-mage, upon realizing that natures own wind had abated, stood tall in his small wooden boat and let his thick woolen robes flap in the gentle breeze and held high his wizards staff (or as high as he could, considering it was actually a 5 foot iron crowbar he had found at a construction site) and made the ancient spell of winds, and he would have completed the spell if the dingy hadn’t suddenly rolled and dumped him in the water, forcing him to wade to the edge of the pond and clamber out while the boat rental guy regarded him suspiciously.


 


Posted by baduizt (Member # 5804) on :
 
Blaxploitation

'Get yo' honky-tonk butt outta my way, you jive-ass white turkey! Mama got me three bricks o' heroin to get across the border before midnight, or the cops gon' be on ma ass!'

Okay, technically that's two, but I couldn't resist
 


Posted by shimiqua (Member # 7760) on :
 
I gotta say, some of these have turned so far bad that they are actually coming up good.

Who knew that could happen?
 


Posted by JohnMac (Member # 8472) on :
 
SCI-FI Humor


The rest of the world slept peacefully, but Jack awoke early for what would be the last day the planet Mytos would exist, with a ravenous craving for bacon.
 


Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
 
Autobiographical novels:

He typed hard enough to hurt his swollen wrists, while his mind raced, trying to think of the words for the next Bulwer-Lytton "it was a dark and stormy night" opening sentence.
 


Posted by Darth Petra (Member # 7126) on :
 
Fantasy

The Dark Lord Gerobinathi'eansox sat on his gilded, ornatetly carved throne, his fingers running over the complex ingraving of a lion, planning his next move in the war against the army of Light; an attack on the capital city Luminaria, the gathering place for goodness, and if he could accomplish this, he'd have the entire world in his clutches, and all the good, peace-loving people as his slaves.
 


Posted by philocinemas (Member # 8108) on :
 
Purplish Prose

Fate twirled its tenuous fingers in a pernicious flutter of malevolence and then reached with its outstretched hands, twisting them around the life of Samuel Huntington, even as he now ascended to the pinnacle of austerity; this chalice, which had been christened upon him from his birth and had tormented him throughout his auspicious upbringing, now fitted firmly in his clasped grip as fate, unbeknownst to him, held him equally as tight within its clutches.

[This message has been edited by philocinemas (edited March 05, 2009).]
 




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