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The Best of the Worst

April 15, 2014 //  by Wendy Lawton//  208 Comments

Blogger: Wendy Lawton

One of the things you may not know about me is that I won the infamous Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest in 1999 for the worst first line in children’s literature.

My line read:

The greedy schoolbus crept through the streets devouring clumps of children until its belly groaned with surfeit, then lumbered back to the schoolhouse where it obligingly regurgitated its meal onto the grounds. 

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Yep. It was appropriately awful. My sentence was featured in newspapers across the country from The Boston Globe to our local papers. I even got a call from the booking agent at the Jay Leno show. They saw that I won in the children’s category and pictured a precocious child writer to go head to head with Mr. Leno. Not exactly. But it was a wild week.

We often talk about great first sentences in fiction but I think it’s fun to toy with the reverse and come up with the worst sentence you can think of to open a book.

Wanna play?

Here’s what we will do. In the comments section share your masterpieces– the worst first sentence you can create. *Keep it clean* It can be any genre from westerns to fantasy to romance to suspense, but let us know the genre. Enter as many times as you like. In the Bulwer-Lytton one man once submitted over 3000 entires.

I’ll have my team read over all the entries– I won’t comment– and next week I’ll share the winners in several categories, telling why each was especially awful. Besides your brush with renown, each winner will receive a gift basket of books and goodies. (And don’t forget: once you’ve created your masterpiece you can enter it into the Bulwer-Lytton contest yourself.)

So, let the fun begin. . .

TWEETABLES:

Forget the best first sentence in a novel. Let’s have the worst. Click to Tweet

Enter your worst first line for a novel to win fame and prizes. Click to Tweet

 

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Category: Awards, Blog, Contests, FictionTag: Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, contest, first sentence, prizes

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  1. Jeanne Takenaka

    April 15, 2014 at 6:23 am

    Wendy, that’s funny that you won for the best worst first line. 🙂 Loved that. I’m not sure I’m creative enough to come up with a really great BAD first line but here’s my first attempt:

    “Cassandra Stephenson pontificated on the meaning of life to her somnolent students, as she pondered her future with her boyfriend Sigfried.”

    Genre: We’ll call it contemporary romance. 🙂

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 6:34 am

      Beautiful! When I read it the starts halted in their courses, the angels sighed, and my hamster fell off his wheel.

      Reply
      • Jeanne Takenaka

        April 15, 2014 at 11:26 am

        ROFLOL, Andrew. You made me chortle out loud! 🙂

  2. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 6:30 am

    I was reluctantly invited to the party by my neighbor, but she is thinking that my predilection for not avoiding the use of ten-dollar words will result in her stealthy abandonment by her friends, since that is the kind of behaviour which they are finding intolerable and up with which they will not put.

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 6:32 am

      Oh, genre…how about literary horror?

      Reply
    • Jeanne Takenaka

      April 15, 2014 at 11:27 am

      Love it. 🙂

      Reply
    • Deborah Perkins

      April 15, 2014 at 12:38 pm

      Right here. This takes it!! ROTFL!!

      Reply
  3. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 6:48 am

    This is like eating M&Ms. Surely a bad sign for my writing future.

    Genre – Historical Romance

    To effectively eat the Christians, I thought the lions should have been given silverware by us, while all the while Lucian is quietly thinking that to happily turn over to lions our best silverware by us will only increase their greed which is like throwing pearls before swine, and Bubba will do what Bubba always does, which is drinking all the wine he can find under the circumstantial events of the live-long day we’re going to.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 7:13 am

      Ohhhh, yeah..M&M’s is right!!

      Something tells me this is going to get reallllly intahresting!

      Because I am going to win? Got it?

      Neener.
      Neener.
      Neeeeeener.

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 7:27 am

        You have thrown down the gauntlet, and I’m gonna slap everyone silly with it…

  4. Jennifer Zarifeh Major

    April 15, 2014 at 7:11 am

    Like the fork in the ear repetative repeatingly over and over looping of annoyance, and the socially untamable scourge of a chronic wedgie, the super-fan stalked her prey…weather under the jungle like atmosphere of the bathroom doors, complete with roaches and drug dealers, or in the sultry, heady realm of the cocktail partay, where lies spun like gymnasts doing cartwheels on Red Bull, platinumnmumnun blonde model, Kandy Klooliss was going to speak to somebody about her Amish Ninja Haiku Prehistoric Romance documentary, even if she had to inpail them to a wall.

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 7:27 am

      OK, I surrender.

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 7:50 am

        YOU??

        Surrender?

        Do not.

    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 8:09 am

      genre:contemporary romance

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 8:24 am

        Sounds more like temporary romance to me.

      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 8:35 am

        hahahaha!

  5. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 7:30 am

    Or maybe I don’t surrender. Memoir!

    It all began, as most lives do, at birth, but my wife thinks, No, and she will say “Isn’t it conception that you are speaking of?”, and thus began the beguine.

    Reply
  6. Jaime Wright

    April 15, 2014 at 7:48 am

    He saw her prance cross the dance floor, her stilettos looked as awkward as flip flops on a cow’s hoof and her legs were as long as a spider and perhaps just as hairy and he realized in that moment that he was in love with creep crawly bovine.

    Genre: should be horror, but written from the badly mutilated contemporary romance genre.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 7:51 am

      HAHAHA!!!

      Reply
    • Jaime Wright

      April 15, 2014 at 7:51 am

      See? So bad I had typos! It was supposed to say: “He saw her prance cross the dance floor, her stilettos looked as awkward as flip flops on a cow’s hoof and her legs were as long as a spider and perhaps just as hairy and he realized in that moment that he was in love with a creepy crawly bovine.”

      Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 8:11 am

      So their first date will be to sample haute cuisine?

      Reply
  7. Lori

    April 15, 2014 at 7:51 am

    Here’s mine:

    Sandy Snodgrass, a 32 year computer programmer, contemplated the last hour of her life before she headed to lunch to meet with her best friend Susan who is married and always asking if she has found the love of her life yet which today Sandy actually had but there is a dilemma because no one wants to hear about a person visit to their proctologist no matter how wonderful and good looking he is.

    Contemporary Romance though I should also go join Andrew with Literary Horror.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 7:59 am

      Hahaha! I was breathless just reading this!

      And no, not a fun topic!

      Reply
    • Paiva Lewis

      April 15, 2014 at 12:15 pm

      WIN!!!!

      Reply
    • Lori

      April 15, 2014 at 5:37 pm

      Yes she fell in love with him because of the way he made her feel.

      Reply
  8. shelli littleton

    April 15, 2014 at 7:52 am

    Repetitively pressing his tummy and finally presenting a perfect ten-inch circumferential ball of olive green spit-up from mouth to hand, the gratified gorilla began to revisit and wolf down every delicious mushy morsel, while Josh’s baby brother howled at the glass encasement, “Mommy … big monkey spit!”

    Middle Grade and had a blast!

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 7:54 am

      The kid sounds like a chimp off the old block.

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 7:57 am

        BAHAHAHA!!

      • shelli littleton

        April 15, 2014 at 8:09 am

        Ha, ha!! Good one, Andrew!

      • Jeanne Takenaka

        April 15, 2014 at 11:29 am

        LOL

    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 7:57 am

      I may puke.

      Wow, seriously, that was disgustingly awesome!

      Reply
      • shelli littleton

        April 15, 2014 at 8:09 am

        I aim to please, Jennifer!! You made my daughter and me laugh ourselves silly! And my sentence is based on a true happening … witnessed it with my very own eyes!

      • Lori

        April 15, 2014 at 12:38 pm

        Shelli it should me a memior then.

    • Jeanne Takenaka

      April 15, 2014 at 11:29 am

      Good one, Shelli!

      Reply
      • shelli littleton

        April 15, 2014 at 12:23 pm

        Jeanne, this has been so fun!

    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 1:59 pm

      My husband just said…” I don’t even want to hear it!”

      Reply
      • shelli littleton

        April 15, 2014 at 2:31 pm

        My husband doesn’t either!

      • shelli littleton

        April 15, 2014 at 2:57 pm

        Jennifer, my husband is certain I misunderstood the directions! Grin.

  9. Jim Lupis

    April 15, 2014 at 7:55 am

    Last year I entered a contest for what I thought was “best first sentence” so I gave it my all and entered. Sure enough I won, but then found out the contest was for “best worst sentence”. So much for my writing career! (Only kidding…I think.

    Reply
  10. Jennifer Zarifeh Major

    April 15, 2014 at 7:58 am

    Wendy, you have unleashed the word minions, and this is going to be a very fun day…

    Reply
  11. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 8:29 am

    Seriously, this is keeping me engaged today – thanks, Wendy!

    Genre(s) – inspirational non-fiction, and taxidermy

    “A journey of loss begins with a single step, and they say morticians can do wonders these days, but how was I to know that when we were on the shark-fishing boat and they said “Toss the chum overboard!” they were talking about bait?”

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 8:38 am

      hahaha!

      Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 15, 2014 at 8:55 am

      We just saw Jaws!!

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 9:09 am

        Da-DUM…..Da-DUM….Da Dum Da Dum Da Dum…

    • Kirsten Wilson

      April 15, 2014 at 1:53 pm

      Surprisingly common mistake, really.

      Well played.

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 2:24 pm

        Or a good alibi, for a mystery?

  12. Jennifer Zarifeh Major

    April 15, 2014 at 8:38 am

    Stunningly beautiful, and poised to steal every heart in the room, Lola raised her hands and plunged her fingers into her perfectly coiffed hair, smiled, turned her head…and sniffed her armpit.

    Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 15, 2014 at 8:54 am

      Ha ha!! “We” would never do that!!!

      Reply
    • Lori

      April 15, 2014 at 12:39 pm

      Historical romance, right?

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 1:57 pm

        YES!!! Hahahaha! I didn’t even think of that!

  13. Shirlee Abbott

    April 15, 2014 at 8:52 am

    This is the longest sentence I’ve ever written, queen that I am of the 100-word blog post :^) The first sentence of a fictional autobiography of a big reader:

    I write this while sitting in the kitchen sink because you don’t know me without you read this book, the saddest story you have ever heard, when once upon a time in the beginning in my younger and more vulnerable years, between the bright and cold day where the sun shone on nothing new and the dark and stormy night when the cold passed reluctantly from the earth, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, all this happened more or less and I almost deserved it—in a sense I am out of my mind and it is all right (after all, my family was unhappy in its own way)—where my father took me to discover that I am invisible but my keeper is watching me, and yet I am the hero of my own life.

    Reply
  14. shelli littleton

    April 15, 2014 at 8:53 am

    Repetitively pressing his tummy and finally presenting a perfect ten-inch circumferential ball of olive green spit-up from mouth to hand, the gratified gorilla began to revisit and wolf down every delicious mushy morsel, while Josh’s baby brother, having gobbled the remaining mucus from his fingertip, howled at the glass encasement, “Mommy … big monkey spit!”

    Just to show they have some similarities! Ha! Middle Grade

    Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 15, 2014 at 12:07 pm

      *Just added one phrase to the same sentence! I couldn’t resist!

      Reply
  15. Kirsten Wilson

    April 15, 2014 at 9:16 am

    I stood quietly in the kitchen, glass in hand, staring at the errant ice cube fallen to the floor, feeling my heart somehow connected to it by a taut cord of melancholy, the melancholy of potential melting away on cheap linoleum.

    Genre: Memoir

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 9:18 am

      That’s actually pretty good…

      Reply
      • Kirsten Wilson

        April 15, 2014 at 1:55 pm

        Ha. Thank you. I’m having far too much fun with these.

  16. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 9:17 am

    Genre – writing craft how-to –

    The arc of a good story is like firing a mortar, when you drop the round down the tube and it fulfills its destiny, soaring joyously up, up, up into the fleecy innocent clouds sailing on the cheery blue sky, and then descends like a rollercoaster, faster and faster with a happy excited whoo-HOO! until it lands at the feet of your reader and blows him or her into a red mist drifting lazily on the breeze.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 11:49 am

      OH MY WORD!!! This is truly awesome.

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 12:18 pm

        Think it’ll eventually become part of the literary canon?

      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 12:28 pm

        AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

        I should just give up!!!!

    • Kirsten Wilson

      April 15, 2014 at 1:58 pm

      YES. That is exactly what a good story arc is like. Exactly.

      (And in terms of becoming part of the literary canon, you may have a shot…)

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 2:56 pm

        🙂

  17. Jim Lupis

    April 15, 2014 at 9:24 am

    Genre – Historical Romance

    As she sneezed in his face and the snot dipped off her chin he thought to himself he had never seen such a more beautiful woman turning to his friends he said “youse guys take a good look that is my future wife!

    Reply
    • Deborah Perkins

      April 15, 2014 at 12:43 pm

      That. Is. Disgusting!

      Reply
  18. Kirsten Wilson

    April 15, 2014 at 11:23 am

    Six months old, and already their love had picked up memories like lint, which, now that Maddie thought about it, was appropriate, since she and Brian met at the laundromat, when Maddie found herself hampered by a stubborn washing machine coin slot, but then snickered at the thought of being “hampered” while doing laundry, and then found herself explaining her snicker to the nearest laundromat patron, who turned out to be Brian and who, better yet, turned out to have a sense of humor even, well, dryer than her own.

    Genre: Romance

    Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 15, 2014 at 11:34 am

      That is darling!

      Reply
  19. Jeanne Takenaka

    April 15, 2014 at 11:36 am

    Okay one more: contemporary romance. 🙂

    Hallee stood behind the counter of the only hardware store in her town, the town she’d lived in all of her twenty one years—combing through her long latte-colored locks, her mouth dropped open, her heart pining, her stomach lurching like butterflies bouncing around in it—as she watched the man she always told everyone she would marry put his barrel-thick arm around her nemesis, the ugly Matilda Hawthorne.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 12:37 pm

      GAH!!

      WHY Matilda???

      I’m actually feeling bad for Hallee.

      Reply
  20. Wendy Macdonald

    April 15, 2014 at 12:06 pm

    genre-romance

    Melvin, now sitting very close to Isabelle, smiled and leaned over to kiss her lips as she daintily lifted her fingers to his mouth and picked out a piece of lettuce from between his teeth.

    Blessings ~ Wendy ❀

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 12:17 pm

      And now, she said, lettuce kiss.

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 12:21 pm

        Ha!

      • shelli littleton

        April 15, 2014 at 12:24 pm

        Ha, ha, ha, ha!! Andrew … where do you get this stuff from?!!

      • Wendy Macdonald

        April 15, 2014 at 2:14 pm

        🙂

  21. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    More memoir…

    It all starts in childhood, when it is belatedly realized by me that to first test my new catapult using my baby sister (whose name as you will divine was Gloria) as the payload was a bete noir to my parents who said, “Whoa, dude, uncool!” and like the blind man at the pool of Siloam I just plain didn’t listen, and they were Godly people so I should have, but I named the catapult ‘Sic Transit Gloria’ because she puked.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 12:20 pm

      Okay, now you’re using LATIN on us??

      Ixnay on the Atinlay!!

      Yo no tengo feliz!

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 1:33 pm

        Atinlay ulesray!

        You know what they say…

        Cai kho lo cai khon.

      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 1:46 pm

        Ohhhh, proverbs from Viet Nam? You are annoying!! I am SO telling Barb.

        😛

      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 2:18 pm

        Well done. It means “adversity brings wisdom and gives birth to creativity”.

  22. Jackie Lea Sommers

    April 15, 2014 at 12:27 pm

    When she saw that he could beat the original Mario Bros in under half an hour, she knew she was falling in love; when he showed her the secret glitch level, she knew she was already there.

    Reply
  23. Julia Lewis

    April 15, 2014 at 12:35 pm

    Hello my name is Bean Windblown and right now I’m whimsically picking herbs as I do every Quansiqualm morning.

    Genre: Fantasy.

    Reply
  24. Traci Krites

    April 15, 2014 at 1:06 pm

    Here’s mine: genre Western

    Penelope Pruz pickpocketed the prentious Miss Sadie Lee while Miss Sadie preened for Mr. Doublas who kept a careful eye on the pretty Penelope.

    Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 15, 2014 at 2:01 pm

      They came full circle! Cute.

      Reply
  25. Cheryl Malandrinos

    April 15, 2014 at 1:11 pm

    These are great. What fun. Congratulations on your accomplishment, Wendy. Too bad about that Leno spot. It must still be fun to talk about, though.

    Here’s my shot at a memoir piece.

    Tentatively approaching my archenemy, my legs felt like two logs watered down by months of rain and then tossed into the river, carried by the current over the waterfall, and then beaten to a pulp against a pile of jagged rocks.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 3:04 pm

      Owwwww!

      Reply
  26. donnie nelson

    April 15, 2014 at 1:19 pm

    The nuns left town in droves to get some much needed advice when they found out what were once their habits had become vices.

    Reply
  27. Cheryl Malandrinos

    April 15, 2014 at 1:23 pm

    Middle Grade:

    I’m tired of being the crumbs at the bottom of her glass of milk, the dirty gum stuck on the sole of her shoe, the wet, smelly glob in her litter box, the broken lead in her mechanical pencil.

    Reply
    • Kirsten Wilson

      April 15, 2014 at 9:05 pm

      My middle school daughter couldn’t stop laughing at this. She thought you nailed the genre quite well.

      Reply
      • Cheryl Malandrinos

        April 22, 2014 at 12:45 pm

        Thanks Kirsten. I appreciate it.

  28. Elizabeth Kitchens

    April 15, 2014 at 1:40 pm

    She didn’t live to tell about it because she died and so she asked me to tell her tale, a tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat until you fall off, like she did.

    Genre: Suspense

    Reply
  29. Cynthia Ruchti

    April 15, 2014 at 2:17 pm

    Time stood still, but not really, because time doesn’t stand, nor does it stand for personification of itself, evidenced by–I think you can see where this is headed, no?–the refusal of a sundial to quit working and the insipidly long endurance of today’s lithium batteries, which makes one wonder if time is bipolar, to which any thinking person would reply, “Why, of course! That’s explains a lot!” since time is at once a gift and a curse, a respite and a poltergeist, a kitten in the lap and a tiger’s claws embedded in the turkey-neck folds of skin beneath my trembling, winter-pasty but not altogether weak chin.

    Genre? Time Travail…I mean Time Travel.

    Reply
  30. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 2:32 pm

    Contemporary fiction –

    The passage of the years left the old hippie looking as if he’d put his bell-bottoms on upside-down.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 3:34 pm

      This could be a real book, Andrew!

      Reply
      • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

        April 15, 2014 at 3:45 pm

        It will be…

    • Cheryl Malandrinos

      April 15, 2014 at 4:58 pm

      Love this!

      Reply
  31. Cynthia Ruchti

    April 15, 2014 at 2:41 pm

    Her steps quick and light, she thundered down the hallway, the pounding rattling picture frames on the walls in a whisper-soft, cattail fluff way while the sirens outside sang their sweetly soothing melody only God and dogs could hear.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 2:42 pm

      It goes without saying, but that’s Amish.

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 2:44 pm

        Snorts really loud…

    • Lori

      April 15, 2014 at 5:54 pm

      I was laughing so hard, I was crying.

      Reply
  32. Jennifer Zarifeh Major

    April 15, 2014 at 2:43 pm

    Her voice was like the slow drip of a tap in a darkened room at the in-laws’ cottage on a rainy 4th of July with a busload of pre-teens at a One Direction concert.
    Only more annoying.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 2:44 pm

      Genre? How to book on making family holidays special.

      Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 3:34 pm

      You had me at “Only more annoying.”

      Reply
    • Cheryl Malandrinos

      April 15, 2014 at 4:58 pm

      Too funny.

      Reply
  33. Brandi Daniels

    April 15, 2014 at 2:45 pm

    I stare out the window watching the rain fall down wondering how yesterday it snowed and today it’s raining and tomorrow it will probably be sunny again, but then I wake up and realize it’s all a dream and it’s actually sunny today.

    Reply
    • Brandi Daniels

      April 15, 2014 at 2:50 pm

      Oops I forgot genre, hmm we’ll say historical romance.

      Reply
  34. Cynthia Ruchti

    April 15, 2014 at 2:46 pm

    I told Momma I weren’t never gonna marry, unless she found me a pirate with a degree in Nuclear Physics who lived in a yurt with indoor plumbing and a view of the Chicago River…and I never, ever expected she would.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 2:46 pm

      Genre? Um. Give me a minute. Yes. Yes. Appalachian Fantasy.

      Reply
    • Emily Rachelle

      April 15, 2014 at 3:25 pm

      I actually really love this… haha

      Reply
    • Brandi Daniels

      April 15, 2014 at 6:23 pm

      If you find one of those pirates can you send him my way. Lol I love your genre title.

      Reply
  35. Cynthia Ruchti

    April 15, 2014 at 2:49 pm

    What is WRONG with me? I want to write all these stories! There’s such a fine line between brilliant and bizarre.

    Reply
  36. Brandi Daniels

    April 15, 2014 at 3:01 pm

    The Goodlybloppers attacked the Meazelmoobs with their horrendously puffy chests, destroying any hope for either race until the bluebird started to sing.

    Genre: Sci-fi

    Reply
  37. Cynthia Ruchti

    April 15, 2014 at 3:04 pm

    She loved him and he loved her, so clearly, they were destined to hate each other until the last chapter.

    Genre: Romance

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 3:10 pm

      Can umm, you write my proposal for me? 😀

      Reply
      • Cynthia Ruchti

        April 15, 2014 at 3:33 pm

        I just did. 🙂

      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 4:40 pm

        I write hist/fic! So add a gun, a war and a few tornados.

    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 3:10 pm

      ^^^^^ I forgot to tell you that you are brilliant.^^^^^

      Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 15, 2014 at 4:18 pm

      That’s great, Cynthia!

      Reply
  38. Brandi Daniels

    April 15, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    While chewing a piece of chunky meat in my mouth, wind blowing my hair, I thought about the meaning of life and why I must fall in love with an incredibly gorgeous man to make my life complete, bonus points if he’s a vampire.

    Genre: Romance

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 3:32 pm

      Nicely done.

      Reply
      • Brandi Daniels

        April 15, 2014 at 6:19 pm

        Thank you Cynthia!

  39. Emily Rachelle

    April 15, 2014 at 3:24 pm

    OMG Mark is like totes hot!

    Genre: Vapid teenage mass market paperback.

    Reply
    • Paula

      April 15, 2014 at 3:29 pm

      Wow! Extra points for brevity! 🙂

      Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 3:32 pm

      Can’t wait to see the proposal that lists the genre as Vapid. 🙂

      Reply
  40. Paula

    April 15, 2014 at 3:27 pm

    The turkey lumbered skyward like a winged bowling ball, straining its neck as if it could want its way up into the endless blueness, as if it really believed it was going to be safe up there with no cover and no camouflage or maybe it suddenly got the idea it had turned smurf-blue – I don’t know what goes through a turkey’s head, it can’t be much, and was about to be a whole lot less, I thought as I sighted down my rifle.

    (Genre: hunting magazine first person account )

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 3:31 pm

      This made me laugh so hard!

      Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 4:51 pm

      Nice, but I use an RPG to hunt turkeys. Am I doing something wrong?

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 5:03 pm

        Only if y’all er huntin turkey nuggets.

  41. Ekta Garg

    April 15, 2014 at 3:53 pm

    I came. I saw. And then I decided to go get a smoothie while I tried to figure out whether I really wanted to…well, you know, try out the whole conquering deal.

    Genre: dystopian comedy

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 4:01 pm

      🙂

      Reply
    • Brandi Daniels

      April 15, 2014 at 6:20 pm

      Haha nice.

      Reply
  42. Jennifer Zarifeh Major

    April 15, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    After our wedding reception, we climbed into the getaway car and my husband looked at me and said “I never go anywhere without my Mommy.”

    Genre: Self Help Book “How to get INTO the Witness Protection Program”

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 4:44 pm

      OOPS, it was supposed to say “I looked at the driver, then my husband said….”

      fail!

      Reply
  43. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 4:49 pm

    Action –

    As I looked around the living room at the bullet-riddled bodies of my family, the fallen Christmas tree, the smashed presents, I swore vengeance on those who had perpetrated this foul deed, but then I realized that “Downton Abbey” was about to come on.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 4:59 pm

      OH MY WORD!!!!

      Yes, I laughed out loud.

      Reply
    • Cheryl Malandrinos

      April 15, 2014 at 5:00 pm

      Downton Abbey has to make it into something.

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 5:03 pm

        Yes!! You are entirely correct!

  44. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    And some historical fiction –

    In a clear, brave voice, she called out “Shoot if you must this old gray head…” so I did.

    Reply
  45. Ann H Gabhart

    April 15, 2014 at 5:16 pm

    She wanted to be a writer so bad that she always said she’d do anything to see her name on the front of a real book with title pages and chapters and everything, anything at all, really anything but then she sat down at the computer and clicked open the internet and anything became a thousand nothings, so she decided a blog might be as good as a book.

    How-to book on Writing or maybe How-not-to

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 5:41 pm

      Did you read my resume?????

      Reply
      • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

        April 15, 2014 at 6:17 pm

        BAHAHA! I think she did. All except the welding off your fingers…

      • Ann H Gabhart

        April 15, 2014 at 6:23 pm

        No, Andrew, it would have been “he” always said “he’d” do anything. Besides you’ve already written a dozen first lines of books today so you’re ready to rumble on that writing books bit.

  46. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 15, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    Historical Romance

    “It’s hard for an anthropologist to find true love, but when she said that she still practiced the traditional Aztec ways I knew she would soon have my heart.”

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 5:48 pm

      Andrew, Andrew, Andrew…

      Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 6:18 pm

      You are gifted, brother.

      Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 16, 2014 at 5:39 am

      Come morning, I am just “getting” this … Oh, mercy!! Andrew!!! 🙂

      Reply
  47. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 5:42 pm

    Addy Porter had been told all her life that she had to get married on her sixteenth birthday, but the only problem was, when the big day came around, every male in town under the age of two hundred took one look at her in her orange dress, pink hair, and pea soup green high heels with purple and yellow polka dotted feathers hanging off them and ran to the next county before they’d even decided to move.

    Genre: Contemporary Romance

    Reply
  48. Anna Labno

    April 15, 2014 at 5:43 pm

    Slowly, not too fast, she went, one step at a time. 🙂

    Reply
    • Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

      April 15, 2014 at 7:49 pm

      Perfect.

      Reply
      • Bill Giovannetti

        April 16, 2014 at 12:41 pm

        What Andrew said.

  49. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    It was a dark and stormy night when the stranger looked over at the other stranger and said: “pardner, my horse done fell over dead two hunnert miles back, so I used my knife- which I glued the blade on with flour and water- ta cut the wings off a turkey buzzard, then put ’em on my arms using hay to tie it in place and flew all the way here, and I wanted to ask ya iffin ya was willin’ ta share that there chaw of turbaccur ya gots in her cheek.”

    Genre: Western

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 6:18 pm

      HAHAHA!!! NICE!

      Reply
      • Crystal Ridgway

        April 16, 2014 at 6:24 am

        Thank you!

  50. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    I love you, but I have to kill you.

    Genre: Historical Romance

    Reply
    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 6:19 pm

      Perfect!

      Reply
    • Ann H Gabhart

      April 15, 2014 at 6:24 pm

      Nice, Crystal. Short and full of promise. But it wouldn’t have to be historical. That would fit several genres.

      Reply
      • Crystal Ridgway

        April 16, 2014 at 6:12 am

        Well, I guess that’s true, but since Historical Western Romance is what I write, I just stuck it in that genre.

  51. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    John Henry Jones jumped out a ten story window when his wife woke up retching and informed him she was carrying a child… And landed in a pile of rabid fire ants.

    Genre: Historical

    Reply
  52. Cynthia Ruchti

    April 15, 2014 at 5:55 pm

    He leaned close to her ear, his breath as sweet as caramel stuck in the cavity in her back molar, and confessed what she’d been expecting to hear: “Rosie, love of my life, pulse of my heart, I believe–no, I KNOW–I have ulcerative colitis.”

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 5:56 pm

      Genre: Nonfiction Marriage Manual

      Reply
    • Jeanne Takenaka

      April 15, 2014 at 7:32 pm

      Laughing OUT LOUD, Cynthia! Too funny. 🙂

      Reply
  53. Susan Roach

    April 15, 2014 at 6:00 pm

    I want to play. Here’s my entry for contemporary romance:

    Her blood-red lips glistened into a grin as she tossed her ebony eyes over her shoulder and hit the hunk hunkering behind her, and he tossed his blue eyes back at her, eyes that glistened like limpid pools into the depths of his soul, and they both wondered what this exchange of eyes might mean, but hers were too small for him and his too big for her.

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 6:03 pm

      Susan, this brought true, twisted joy. 🙂

      Reply
      • Susan Roach

        April 15, 2014 at 6:12 pm

        Why thank you, Cynthia.

    • Jennifer Zarifeh Major

      April 15, 2014 at 6:20 pm

      Wow….impressive!

      Reply
    • Jeanne Takenaka

      April 15, 2014 at 7:33 pm

      You are a master at this, Susan. And I don’t mean in a bad way. 🙂

      Reply
    • Lauraine Snelling

      April 17, 2014 at 12:11 pm

      So well done it made me gag. good job.

      Reply
  54. Megan DiMaria

    April 15, 2014 at 6:05 pm

    Genre: Women’s Fiction

    I’ll never forget that day Uncle Bob lay against the couch with a cannula feeding life-sustaining oxygen to his cancer-riddled lungs. He’d grabbed my hand and said, “I promise I’ll kill Anthony before I die.” Unfortunately the cancer got him before he could do-in my good-for-nothing cousin.

    Reply
  55. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:07 pm

    Al Stinker was just about to kiss his bride when a parade of women burst into the church and cried in unison, “we’re all Stinky’s wives and he’s been holding each of us captive in his bathroom while he runs around with more women!”

    Genre: Contemporary Fiction

    Reply
  56. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    Fred Upton stumbled into the outhouse, shoved the screaming half dressed woman aside, stared at the two wooden holes and tried to figure out what he was supposed to do now.

    Reply
    • Crystal Ridgway

      April 15, 2014 at 6:17 pm

      Genre: Historical Romance

      Reply
  57. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    The beautiful woman in the fancy dress stared at the name she’d just scrawled across the affidavit for a proxy marriage, Ugliest Girl In Texas, and prayed her future husband was drunk when he opened his mail, because there wasn’t a man alive that wanted a wife with a name like that.

    Reply
    • Crystal Ridgway

      April 15, 2014 at 6:17 pm

      Genre: Historical Romance

      Reply
  58. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    The outlaw aimed a single shot derringer at Caroline Watson while he stole her cocked Winchester rifle, turned it to stare down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.

    Reply
    • Crystal Ridgway

      April 15, 2014 at 6:15 pm

      Genre: Historical Romance

      Reply
  59. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    Ugly Mugg Hanson brushed last week’s stew out of his beard as he stumbled into the room of spinsters holding their monthly how to get hitched meeting, and yelled, “I’m here ta find my tenth wife.”

    Reply
    • Crystal Ridgway

      April 15, 2014 at 6:15 pm

      Genre: Historical Romance

      Reply
  60. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:14 pm

    Death was nothing to a man like Fester Burch, he’d already died twenty three times, in his eighteen years, one more wouldn’t matter.

    Reply
    • Crystal Ridgway

      April 15, 2014 at 6:14 pm

      Genre: Historical Romance

      Reply
  61. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:16 pm

    They climbed into the ribbon bedecked buggy with its sign proudly proclaiming they had just married… right before it exploded, killing the bride groom, and the pet shark wearing suspenders in the back.

    Genre: Historical Fantasy

    Reply
  62. Becky Jones

    April 15, 2014 at 6:16 pm

    “Run, and quick…this anthropomorphized amoeba thing is about to ingest us like a Kleenex on a drippy nose,” Bruce Swain said loudly, as he gasped macho lungfuls of sweet spring air.

    –Suspense

    Reply
  63. Crystal Ridgway

    April 15, 2014 at 6:18 pm

    Jarod Grimly stood frozen in front of the man holding a cocked revolver on him while the woman he loved jumped in front of him, taking the bullet meant to kill him and proving once and for all that she was right, he really was a yellow bellied sissy boy that couldn’t figure out how to unbutton his union suit.

    Reply
  64. Brandi Daniels

    April 15, 2014 at 6:31 pm

    I’m Boon Hobbs and I like to sit by myself alone on a nice quiet, peaceful, and tranquil river of water tryin’ to catch my fish with my long fishin’ pole in my bright green fishin’ boat.

    Genre: Historical redundancy

    Reply
  65. Brandi Daniels

    April 15, 2014 at 6:34 pm

    I am the first victim in the story who dies once you’re emotionally invested in my wellbeing before you meet the true main character.

    Genre: Wasted suspense

    Reply
    • Cynthia Ruchti

      April 15, 2014 at 6:37 pm

      So funny, Brandi!

      Reply
  66. Cynthia Ruchti

    April 15, 2014 at 6:38 pm

    Turgid.

    Genre: Memoir

    Reply
    • Bill Giovannetti

      April 16, 2014 at 1:00 pm

      So much said in that one word… LOL

      Reply
      • Cynthia Ruchti

        April 16, 2014 at 1:01 pm

        I’m telling, you, I’m saving these for possible future use! (Oh, wait. My agent’s watching.) 🙂

  67. Brandi Daniels

    April 15, 2014 at 6:42 pm

    We all lived and we all died and that’s all there is to know, oh and a bunch of stuff got blown up.

    Genre: War Tragedy

    Reply
  68. Becky Jones

    April 15, 2014 at 6:42 pm

    “I hatched from good, solid stock, the first in my litter of larvae, born on a bad, browning banana…but already, my transience tamped down, a thick smog of sorrow on my gossamer wings.”

    -Fruit Fly Memoir

    Reply
  69. Beth MacKinney

    April 15, 2014 at 7:11 pm

    The sun leaped away from the horizon like Bo and Luke’s souped up General Lee shooting into the air, leaving Rosco P. Coltrane in the dust as it lands and races away into a sultry southern sunset without a scratch, even though we all know it’s just a bunch of Hollywood camera tricks and they’ve totally wiped out the undercarriage of yet another Dodge Charger.

    Reply
  70. Beth MacKinney

    April 15, 2014 at 7:11 pm

    Sorry. Forgot the genre. Southern thriller.

    Reply
  71. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    April 16, 2014 at 6:59 am

    Romantic Techno-Thriller

    “They may call it ‘enhanced interrogation’ these days, but for most of the participants it’s still a lovely way to spend a lazy summer afternoon.”

    Reply
  72. Paula

    April 16, 2014 at 9:04 am

    Dearest Reader,
    As your eyes lick over my words on the screen, my mind brushes up against yours, infecting it with my thoughts and molding it to my perspective.

    (Self-published how-to on writing persuasively)

    Reply
    • Bill Giovannetti

      April 16, 2014 at 12:59 pm

      I feel like I need hand sanitizer now. LOL

      Reply
      • Paula

        April 17, 2014 at 10:43 am

        Or eye sanitizer… Or brain bleach… 🙂

  73. Jennifer Valent

    April 16, 2014 at 10:06 am

    I awoke to a cold sweat, desperately hoping it had all been a nightmare, but I knew there was no escaping the dreadful fact that the world as we knew it had run out of chocolate.

    Reply
    • Jennifer Valent

      April 16, 2014 at 10:08 am

      I would categorize this as Dystopian. 🙂

      Reply
  74. Bill Giovannetti

    April 16, 2014 at 12:58 pm

    Panic-stricken Royce Palance crushed the accelerator as his nether regions gurgled their demand for instant relief from the storm roiling within, and his sphincters cried for release from the contraband burrito secreted to him at the religious retreat, before the fast was over, and he shook his head with regret, but still with hope, racing home with undiminished faith it would all come out in the end.

    ~Thriller

    Yeah, I’m the guy who went there. Sorry.

    Reply
    • Crystal Ridgway

      April 16, 2014 at 2:12 pm

      Brilliant. And disgusting!

      Reply
      • Beth MacKinney

        April 17, 2014 at 1:26 pm

        So it’s either brilliantly disgusting or disgustingly brilliant. I’m not sure which.

  75. Tessa Afshar

    April 16, 2014 at 4:29 pm

    I am still laughing too hard at Wendy’s story to expect my brain to function. Jay Leno? How brilliant is that? But here is my try at it:

    Huddled on the trash heap of life, Job decided that God was not very just after all, since He had thought it alright to take Job’s beautiful children and leave behind his obnoxious wife and her smelly, pock-marked mother.

    Reply
  76. Tessa Afshar

    April 16, 2014 at 4:37 pm

    I am chewing on a big wad of blueberry bubble gum when it suddenly hits me: I’ve been the hapless hopeless victim of a horrific homicide.
    Genre: Suspense.
    Oh and the one above about Job is from my regular genre, biblical fiction.

    Reply
  77. Deidra Romero

    April 16, 2014 at 5:42 pm

    Suspense: Realizing the fragility of the moment at hand, I gave Slumpy Howard a sideways glance, nodded and grinned as if chewing on a piece of meaty gristle as I stood on the veranda sweating through the back of my cocktail jacket in the most unusual pattern.

    Reply
  78. Caitlin

    April 17, 2014 at 9:26 am

    Genre: Children’s historical

    “The cold bowl of oatmeal was fairly crawling with worms, but the headmaster was looking; I tipped back a wriggling spoonful and felt it inch down my gullet—chokingly forced back a gag—there was a bit that wouldn’t budge.”

    Reply
    • shelli littleton

      April 17, 2014 at 10:48 am

      Oh, that’s awful and great, Caitlin! My husband once had to drink spoiled milk because his mother didn’t believe him. He is not fond of milk today! Ha!

      Reply
      • Caitlin

        April 17, 2014 at 2:24 pm

        Thank you, Shelli! It was inspired by my Dad’s tales of boarding school. Oh, your poor husband! I can well believe an aversion to milk after an experience like that. 🙂

  79. Sharyn Kopf

    April 18, 2014 at 8:39 am

    I know I’m late to the party so hope folks are still reading. So disappointed to have missed out on all the fun Tuesday! Anyway, here’s my historical contribution:

    My name is Ishmael Farouk Mellofluesciousmegoozapam … but you can call me Ned.

    Reply
  80. Sharyn Kopf

    April 18, 2014 at 8:59 am

    OK, one more (contemporary romance):

    He strode like a lion through the door, his silver blue eyes shooting sparks of liquid fire in rhythm to the Air Supply song coursing from the speakers, causing me to drop my venti half-caff triple-foam caramel latte right before I fainted into a heap beside it, allowing the brown beverage to slowly soak into my shirt until I looked very much like a mushed banana.

    Reply
  81. Ekta Garg

    April 18, 2014 at 10:19 am

    (Disclaimer: I absolutely LOVED _The Hunger Games_, so you know what they say about imitation and flattery…)

    My name is Kat-Tris, and I live in the future America where everyone wears gray clothes that are ratty, and I’ve got this cool guy friend who can sometimes go by his number or name, depending on what version of this we’re doing today, and even though I’m just a teenager it looks like none of the adults around here care enough about the state of things to change them or have the intelligence to do it, so I know I’m going to have to save the world or destroy the government or both, and along the way I’ll probably meet a vampire or a werewolf and might even fall in love with one of them, which will totally make my guy friend, [insert name/number here], act all stupid and egotistic, but somehow all of that works to my advantage as I change and destroy the world as we know it, which doesn’t explain what happens to that world in the future future, since my story already starts in the future, and in this future only the teenagers have enough drive to change anything.

    Just sayin’.

    Reply

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