Examples from It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Here are a few examples to help you get started writing horrific prose. Bear in mind that the contest is to come up with the worst opening line to a novel. Many of the entries to the San Jose contest are funny in their own right, such as:

Detective Sergeant Thudley Snigger pedaled manfully down the narrow, unmetaled -- and therefore decidedly mucky -- lane that led to the very minor village of Skinny Dipping, Dulcet, pondering the possible kinetic effects of removing his training wheels.
-- Ann M. Williams

Nydia found one of the drawbacks of being a werewolf was coming into heat during a full moon and later giving birth to decituplets.
-- Libby Setkowicz

However, the badness of many of the entries cannot be appreciated until you start to think about what the novel that came afterwords would have to be like:

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old manatee that died?
-- William MacKendree

In case you're looking for inspiration, here are two particularly egregious examples that have won previous contests:

The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian trible now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic Hansomas roared, "Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal."
-- Steve Garman, 1984 winner

The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese, feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically pedaling unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by Nature's maxim, "Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work," and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
-- Sheila B. Richter, 1987 winner

Back to the contest description