worst opening line (horrible puns)
Natasha, the Russian mail order bride, found it hard to adjust after being fired from the assembly line at Burt’s Bees Skin Care Products - one time her husband even caught her smearing Lip Restorer With Pomegranite Oil on their Slumberland pillow, and, when asked why, she told him: “I love the smell of lip balm in morning. . .it smells like factory."
But I didn't get close with that one. For this year's contest I thought that I had submitted another horrible pun, but in fact I must have entered the science fiction contest. It's not a great, horrible opening, but I did rate a miscellaneous dishonourable mention and that aint too shabby:
worst opening line (scifi)
"You're not in Kansas anymore, people!" the gruff Marine Captain bellowed as I wheeled myself along the tarmac of Planet Cliché, the only place in the Galaxy where you could mine Unobtainium, undergo the powerful Eywa ritual with a blue eight-foot-tall alien Princess, and discover a hunter-gatherer people who despite decades of human contact still hadn't developed the wheel, the composite bow, or toilet paper.
You can read the full list of winners (and there are some corkers) here.
28 comments:
Still can't let go of the awfulness of Avatar, can you?
Hearty congratulations, although I must say I don't understand the category...
Seana
I think the category is just a bunch of lines that werent quite good enough to win or place in all the other categories.
There's a knack to it, isn't there?
Next year I predict you for the win.
Any truth to the tale that the word corker refers to high spirited souls from said county ? God I loved the cork accent of the doltish barkeep in Dead Yard. Were it not for the talents of Mr. Doyle I'd be reading not listening but as a voice "talent" myself, cringing at that term, its like a week ina candy store to har your books in tboae incredible Irish tones.
arggh love the ipad but hate the typo spewing keyboard ... apologies for motion sickness
Seana
There's definitely a knack to it. Being funny is a key part but it isnt everything.
Rastamick,
Hmmm, I forgot about him, there's a doltish barkeep in Falling Glass, I hope I didnt repeat myself there.
And hey if you like Lighthouse all the way through you could review it on Audible...I still think Lighthouse 2 is the best of the trilogy. I just think the ideas are better and the focus is sharper and it zips along in a way that I find more satisfying than either 1 or 3.
It's one thing to know you can write badly, but to have your bad writing recognized must be a validating experience. Felicitations.
Here once again is my favorite Bulwer Lytton entry, the 2007 winner in the mystery category:
"I'd been tailing this guy for over an hour while he tried every trick in the book to lose me: going down side streets, doubling back, suddenly veering into shop doorways, jumping out again, crossing the street, looking for somewhere to make the drop, and I was going to be there when he did it because his disguise as a postman didn't have me fooled for a minute."
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
The doltish barkeep is Falling Glass is a prince among doltish barkeeps. It shows you still have your comic chops, you old dulse eater.
Peter
Its good to have that official stamp of approval.
Yeah thats a great one BLC wise.
Its interesting too to note how tastes change. Before he became known as a hack Bulwer Lytton was universally respected, was elevated to the peerage and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
I have read one of his books: The Last Days of Pompeii. It wasn't good, but I've certainly read worse.
Peter
I'm quite partial too to the runner up in this year's purple prose category:
The Los Angeles morning was heavy with smog, the word being a portmanteau of smoke and fog, though in LA the pollutants are typically vehicular emissions as opposed to actual smoke and fog, unlike 19th-century London where the smoke from countless small coal fires often combined with fog off the Thames to produce true smog, though back then they were not clever enough to call it that.
All six loyal readers of this blog will be aware of my obsession with Terrence Malick and the tv show Breaking Bad.
It appears they have collided at last. In the Breaking Bad S4E2 podcast (yes I am that nerdy) Brian Cranston tells the story of the actor who plays Skinny Pete (Jessie's druggie friend) and how he "wanted to thank everyone on Breaking Bad for giving him his big break because he's just been cast in the new Terrence Malick movie where he's going to have a lot of sex scenes with a former Bond girl."
Congratulations....I think.
Your's was best
better than the rest
in years ahead
we'll all be dead
but your lines will live on
as bad as a rotten pron
I like your opening line. It's pretty funny!
Adrian, that selection in indeed quite good. My only complaint about that purple prose entry and the mystery entry I cited (whose author is Swedish, by the way, which makes Stieg Larsson at best the second-finest Swedish crime writer of our time), is that they are too well-written for me to regard them as bad. The authors were in full control of what they were doing.
Giacomo Meyerbeer, the fantastically popular opera composer of the mid-19th century and an early inspiration and later target of Wagner, wrote an opera whose libretto was based on one of Bulwer Lytton's novels.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Glenna
Its definitely congratulations. I've been entering the bad pun section of that contest for the last four years and havent got anywhere, so this makes up for it a little bit.
Lew
You're a poet
ya dont even know it
DJD
Thanks man.
Peter
There's an art to the bad opening line and especially the bad pun.
I was disappointed with a headline in The New York Times today about elephant behaviour in Kenya: "Leave The Tusks, Take The Cannoli"
http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/leave-the-tusks-take-the-cannoli/
I can see what they were trying to do but its pretty feeble.
The New York Times' decline has been noted here. That makes its refusal to hire me even as it culls colleagues, some of them excellent, from my paper's copy desk, all the more galling.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter, you probably made a big mistake posting that blog post. The incredible investigative skills of the Times would have led them right to it as they considered hiring you.
Adrian, we know you have a better cannoli pun in you. Or at least we know you think you do.
Is Skinny Pete the small wirey guy or the big innocent looking one?
Seana: Nah, they failed to hire me well before I made that post. I brought the subject up, though, because, much to the Times' credit, they provided a detailed explanation of why they did not hire me based on the written test I took.
One of the reasons, sadly, may have been justified. The other, which was complete and utter bullshit, was that my headlines were too whimsical. So I understandably laugh at the failed effort at whimsy that Adrian cited.
On the other hand, maybe this means there's hope for me yet.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
The New York Times clearly made a mistake. Their headlines are piss poor and their copyediting sucks. They seem to have no copyediting or fact checking at all in their blog reporting which often leads to embarrassing errors.
I have to agree with Adrian, Peter. They missed the boat when they didn't hire you.
Speaking of Bulwer Lyttonlike contests, I just learned about the Better Book Titles website. I learned about it because friend and former coworker Zack Ruskin is this week's selection.
To be fair, the Times generally prefers copy editors with more administrative and supervistory experience than I was ever interested in acquiring. They like people who have run copy desks or supervised production, for instance.
Still, I like to think they made a mistake, that I do the things I'm good at better than the Times does them.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I have to mention, too, that for all its journalistic excellence, the Times' headlines have never been the envy of copy editors anywhere.
The small headline type size, generally horizontal layout of the paper, especially on inside pages, and staid attitude have traditionally given rise to long headlines with a minimum of zing.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
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