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Saturday LOL: 2010's Worst First Sentence of a Novel

By Lynne DeVenny

The Grammar Police scored a major bust with this winner of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest given for worst [deliberately crafted] first sentence of a novel, by Molly Ringle of Seattle, Washington:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

My heart be still. No, seriously, be still. I almost had a heart attack.

I think Canadian Jonathan Bray, the runner-up in the romance category, had to have been a real close second:

She purred sensually, oozing allure that was resisted only by his realization as an entomologist that the protein dust on the couch from the filing of her crimson nails was now being devoured by dust mites in a clicking, ferocious, ecstatic frenzy.

Ick.

But Kentuckian Judy Fischer's entry might strike a cord with Practical Paralegalism's legal support staff readers:

As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveled her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.

(I always wondered how different my life might have been if my parents had named me Christie.)

Source: The Daily Dish; The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Full post as published by Practical Paralegalism on July 03, 2010 (boomark / email).