131–140 of 154 posts
Prompt: write me a bad opening sentence to enter in the bulwer-lytton contest Response: > "As the sun set on the dusty plains, John pulled his sweat-drenched shirt away from his stick-thin frame and gazed longingly at the flickering neon sign of the only bar for miles, silently praying for a cold beer to quench his thirst and dull the pain of his troubled past."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do this to get it out, then I rewrite it to take all the parentheticals out.
Those parentheticals can be rewritten with commas, which sent me on an exploratory tangent trying to see if one could use commas instead of parens in Lisp.
> All I can say is that I have never been so insulted (even by the likes of my moronic sister (who seems to delight in making me uncomfortable (and she is so good at it, knowing just how to push my buttons (which I think is a skill that all siblings possess to some extent (which I believe proves some sort of genetic link (despite the fact that I really enjoyed genetics in school (relating on so many levels to Gregor…
Lest anyone get triggered by the subject matter into actually trying to find this, it's from https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2019 . (We changed the URL (more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018429 ).)
> “Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking leaves from the front yard. > Sir Reginald Brimwater, Guardian o…
Also, maybe "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" by G.K. Chesterton.
And of course most by P.G. Wodehouse.
> “Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking leaves from the front yard. > Sir Reginald Brimwater, Guardian o…
> Confederacy of Dunces It's definitely a step up in terms of reader effort, but I found it worth it. It doesn't compare well to Pratchett and Adams who are more like a writer's variant of the stand-up comedian (a lot of the entries in this contest feel stylistically close to their writing). A Confederacy of Dunces instead shines in its portrayal of the comically pitiful characters within it, with John Kennedy Toole…
They seem bad to me, until this one: > If I wanted to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a dystopian YA’s protagonist, I needed several things: missing or deceased parents (check), a complicated romantic life involving multiple partners and predictable behavior (check), a tough exterior that protected my sensitive inner workings (check), and finally, a life of danger, uncertainty, and constant struggle to survive (ch…
So good
The link currently points to the 2019 winners, the correct one is: https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2022
lol Honestly i think the 2019 grand winner is the best still >2019 Grand Prize >Space Fleet Commander Brad Brad sat in silence, surrounded by a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, maintaining the same forlorn frown that had been fixed upon his face since he’d accidentally destroyed the phenomenon known as time, thirteen inches ago.
> “Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking leaves from the front yard. > Sir Reginald Brimwater, Guardian o…
I recommend Roald Dahl's "Going Solo". The Audiobook narrated by Andrew Sachs is quite compelling. Also, maybe "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" by G.K. Chesterton. And of course most by P.G. Wodehouse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a) SUPERB, and b) a perfect example of the Dan Brown Code[1]. [1] http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.h...
I hadn't read any Dan Brown, gee that's really bad! So, the sentence maybe should've been rearranged so the book starts with Square-jawed , getting right into the action.
> “Hoist the mainsail ye accursed swine” shouted the Captain over the roar of the waves as the ship was tossed like a cork dropped from a wine bottle into a jacuzzi when the faucet is wide open and the jets are running full blast and one has just settled into the water with a glass of red wine to ease the aches and pains after a day of hard labor raking leaves from the front yard. > Sir Reginald Brimwater, Guardian o…