'It Was a Dark & Stormy Night' Bad Writing Contest- Try Writing One!

[Robert]

Yes Bunny, the gruelling pun earns a bonus.

[Archaic]

Rhythmically breathed the great city of London, in and out, in and out, and with each putrid breath the waves broke and tossed their human jetsam upon the shores of Shoreditch, and of Spitalfields, and of Whitechapel, while the dread blind beachcomber picked his crooked way along the strand.

PS I claim a bonus point for "shores of Shoreditch."

You're a poet, Robert.

OK, you can have an extra point for how terrible "shores of Shoreditch" sounds, but does that mean I get a bonus point for "Another grueling day in the workhouse"?

It's got 'Vile Pun Champion' smeared all over it.


Archaic

[Robert]

Rhythmically breathed the great city of London, in and out, in and out, and with each putrid breath the waves broke and tossed their human jetsam upon the shores of Shoreditch, and of Spitalfields, and of Whitechapel, while the dread blind beachcomber picked his crooked way along the strand.

PS I claim a bonus point for "shores of Shoreditch."

[mariab]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Carter
The sun had it's hat on.
Sounds like French surrealist poetry, Le bateau ivre {The drunk boat} or something.

[Archaic]

Outside it was grim.

The weather was grim, the room inside was grim, the wind and rain in the courtyard were grimishly grim.

She felt pretty grim thinking about all this grimnish.

She laid down on the grim bed in the small grimly furnished room and passed out.

He put his arm through the window, silently, with a grim determination.

"Mummy! I love you" he said to himself gaily, a grim look on his face.

He raised the knife to her prostate body.

It was all pretty much grim.

Hi Ruby.
I like this; can you condense it into one sentence of 50-60 words? I was thinking you could throw in words like grimly, grimace, grimey... I wonder how many variations there are?

The sun had it's hat on.

Hi Phil. That is a good line.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Magpie]

Try our hand at bad writing? I'm way ahead of the rest of you folks. Click the 'Dissertations' section and you'll find a few entries from me.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

You never know Tom--if you start now, you might finish in time to enter the 2024 competition....

[Archaic]

It was another grueling day in the workhouse.


Now come on, guys; that's bad!


Archaic

[Archaic]

The night was dark, very dark; too dark to see unless you had the amazing skill to see in the dark, which no one has,
so I couldn’t see enough to even begin to describe to you everything that I was not seeing.

Bad?
Archaic

[Archaic]

It was a cold September morning when Sherlock Holmes entered my room, announced that the Whitechapel Fiend had just left his first clue, and triumphantly placed a nicotine-stained forefinger against the following advertisement from the personal column of 'The Times' : "Man with knife would like to meet woman with womb."

Ok, here's one:

Arriving back at her dismally pungent lodgings with the cracked window pane, crude deal table, and challenging three-legged chair,
Mary sighed for the good old days back at the Welsh coal mines.

Please tell me I'm getting worse.

Thanks,
Archaic

[Robert]

It was a cold September morning when Sherlock Holmes entered my room, announced that the Whitechapel Fiend had just left his first clue, and triumphantly placed a nicotine-stained forefinger against the following advertisement from the personal column of 'The Times' : "Man with knife would like to meet woman with womb."

[Robert]

Inside the Ringers, the women were gossiping as usual : "I suppose you've heard, there's been another one, and young PC Jones fainted when he saw it, though it's his wife I feel sorry for, I mean, giving birth to sextuplets is no joke...."

[Tom_Wescott]

"The sun had its hat on." I think that line is pretty awesome, actually.

And wow, you're right, Robert's paragraph was actually a full sentence. I think he ripped it from a Begg book!

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Archaic]

The 1-Sentence Rule

"the roaring fires and welcoming bosoms of home"

Thanks for the submissions everyone; they're all pretty funny.

But if you want to write within the rules of the Bulwer-Lytton (Bad) Fiction Contest, please remember that your work must be only one sentence long.

That's what makes it so difficult... you have to be both atrocious and pithy!

So far Robert's last offering is getting my vote... it reminds me of that wonderful Shakespeare quote: "Brevity is the soul of wit."

Thanks and keep 'em coming!
Archaic

PS: Entries can be on any subject you want; they don't have to be Ripper-related. (Though for understandable reasons Ripper-related entries might prove to be crowd favorites.)

[Phil Carter]

The sun had it's hat on. What type of hat is unsure, though most thought a fedora the most likely, as the sun liked watching Federer play tennis. Had Federer been playing cricket, the sun would have used another hat, a panama. Howeve as the sun knew of no cricket played in Pamama, he decided against it. In consequence of rain, the sun chose a Sou' Wester- which pointed the sun in the right direction- to enable the sun to endure the consequences. Consequently, and as a result of this, the traditional northerly flat cap was left on the shelf. The shelf-life of flat caps though,was full of Eastern promise, this delight waking the sun every morning until the end of the last set of tthe tennis match- for the sun knew that it had to set in the West- hence the fedora. Yes, the sun had got his hat on. Which meant another tennis match, as the sun always came out to play with its hat on.

An old Russian woman called Olga had a husband called Ulf, who was Swedish. Ulf was the most Leninist of all communists. But Ulf was always swearing, and was always telling rude jokes.
They had been married 45 years and every day they would try to guess what weather the next day would bring.
One December evening it was cold, and Olga predicted snow. Ulf cursed and said it would rain. They argued to such an extent that Olga said-
' For 45 years Ive put up with you and your swearing and know-all attitude. So tomorrow morning, if it snows like I say you pack your bags and leave. If it rains, I will pack my bags and leave.' Ulf smiled and agreed.
The next morning they woke up and went downstairs to the kichen. Outside- it was pouring down with rain. Ulf laughed, swore at his wife and told her to pack ger bags. She went upstairs and did just that. When she came down she stood in the doorway, tearful, and asked-
' how? How were you SO certain it would rain?'

' Olga. Its December 25th. And 'RUDE ULF' the RED, knows rain, dear!'

[Robert]

Oh, I can write crap till the cows come home, Bunny.

It was in the early hours of the thirtieth of September 1888 that Mr Lawende, Mr Levy and Mr Harris emerged from their club, where they had spent a pleasant and convivial evening, and directed their steps to the roaring fires and welcoming bosoms of home, each man full of good cheer and thankfully unaware of the frightful events which were about to be enacted, events which would disturb the repose of gentlefolk and strike fear into the breast of every female, be she duchess or sempstress, high born or low.