Worst Openings – Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Worst Openings – Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

We all struggle with our opening lines/paragraphs. We have to hook our readers from the start. But what about the clunkers?

Perhaps the most infamous is this one, from “Paul Clifford,” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops,...