I stumbled upon 33 Of The Most Hilariously Terrible First Sentences In Literature History a few months ago, and I somehow managed to find my way back to the site today. Taken from a contest whose sole purpose is to inspire authors to write the worst possible opening line to a novel, these thirty-three selections collected over the course of a decade are deliciously horrible and worth a read. The following are my favorites:
As an ornithologist, George was fascinated by the fact that urine and feces mix in birds’ rectums to form a unified, homogeneous slurry that is expelled through defecation, although eying Greta’s face, and sensing the reaction of the congregation, he immediately realized he should have used a different analogy to describe their relationship in his wedding vows. - David Pepper
As she slowly drove up the long, winding driveway, Lady Alicia peeked out the window of her shiny blue Mercedes and spied Rodrigo the new gardener standing on a grassy mound with his long black hair flowing in the wind, his brown eyes piercing into her very soul, and his white shirt open to the waist, revealing his beautifully rippling muscular chest, and she thought to herself, “I must tell that lazy idiot to trim the hedges by the gate.” - Kathryn Minicozzi
When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday, his children packed his bags and drove him to Golden Pastures retirement complex just off Interstate 95. - Stephen Farnsworth
The Mushroom Men of Knarf were silently advancing on the unsuspecting earthlings, and their thin milky blood ran colder when they smelled spores from fungal toenail infections rising from many of the invaders’ feet; for to them it was a wondrous and shocking scent of kinship, homeland, and asexual reproduction. - David S. Nelson
It takes considerable talent to write sentences this bad. The remaining twenty-nine selections are quite amusing as well.
As an ornithologist, George was fascinated by the fact that urine and feces mix in birds’ rectums to form a unified, homogeneous slurry that is expelled through defecation, although eying Greta’s face, and sensing the reaction of the congregation, he immediately realized he should have used a different analogy to describe their relationship in his wedding vows. - David Pepper
As she slowly drove up the long, winding driveway, Lady Alicia peeked out the window of her shiny blue Mercedes and spied Rodrigo the new gardener standing on a grassy mound with his long black hair flowing in the wind, his brown eyes piercing into her very soul, and his white shirt open to the waist, revealing his beautifully rippling muscular chest, and she thought to herself, “I must tell that lazy idiot to trim the hedges by the gate.” - Kathryn Minicozzi
When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday, his children packed his bags and drove him to Golden Pastures retirement complex just off Interstate 95. - Stephen Farnsworth
The Mushroom Men of Knarf were silently advancing on the unsuspecting earthlings, and their thin milky blood ran colder when they smelled spores from fungal toenail infections rising from many of the invaders’ feet; for to them it was a wondrous and shocking scent of kinship, homeland, and asexual reproduction. - David S. Nelson
It takes considerable talent to write sentences this bad. The remaining twenty-nine selections are quite amusing as well.
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