The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Perhaps you have heard of this. It's a contest for bad writing! Edward George Bulwer-Lytton wrote a famous sentence in his novel Paul Clifford. Here is the 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.

The first phrase of this sentence is the one with which Snoopy, of "Peanuts" fame, starts his famous novel.

Every year a contest is held to find a writer who can write a bad opening to a novel, and this website describes the contest and has links to some of the winners and to news articles about the contest.

Read it for fun, and perhaps you will be inspired to enter the contest yourself!