It is time to ask what has tormented me for years. What's so bad about "It was a dark and stormy night"? It seems decent enough. "Dark night" is redundant, I guess, but then some nights are darker than others. So I don't get it—why the worst-ever reputation?
I don't think it's bad on its own, it's just cliched. I think its frequent use in the "Peanuts" comic brought it to widespread anti-fame.
To me, starting a story (or movie) in the middle a giant fight scene, and then jumping "12 hours earlier" is the contemporary equivalent lazy opening. It just means you're not trying, you're relying on convention to create drama.
There's nothing bad about the phrase "it was a dark and stormy night" per se. However, that's not the full opening line. What follows is the most abysmally convoluted sentence imaginable:
"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, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."^[0]
And the opening paragraph gets worse from there, something about lighting
his pipe with a "promethean torch." Whether it's a change in tastes over
the years, or a continuing annoyance is subject to debate, but the general
style is called "Purple Prose".
Tastes have changed, largely because media have changed. Back in the day, there were no movies, video games, TV, or radio. Novels were the only form of personal, portable, escapist entertainment (aside from opium, I suppose). As such, they were very "visual." Readers enjoyed long bouts of description. It helped to set the scene.
Sample some mass-market Victorian fiction, and you'll find a lot of openers like that one. The style is anachronistic today, though it survives in some genres, and it has its famous practitioners. (George R.R. Martin is about as purple as they come.)
That's not unduly convoluted for Victorian English. It's mostly concrete language that sets up a scene pretty well. I'd say it isn't half bad, and surely not the worst opening sentence of any English novel. There has to be some other reason why it acquired that status.
If you're familiar with Victorian writing styles, including "Purple
Prose," then Bulwer-Lytton is merely an example of the era in much the
same way as Shakespeare is an example of his era of Modern English.
Charles Shculz, the creator of the Peanuts comic, regularly poked fun at
Bulwer-Lytton's "It was a dark and stormy night..." until it became a
running joke. Since Peanuts was published for nearly 50 years, the joke
was well known.
The Bulwer-Lytton writing contest started quite a long time ago (80's)
at San Jose State University, but I remember it was originally called
a "Bad Writing Contest." Some support for my failing meatware memory can
be found here:
There's also the Lyttle Lytton contest[0], which is a similar contest that limits entries to 200 words, plus has some additional contests. I'm a fan of the Found contest, which is a competition to find the most unintentionally bad/silly thing that's actually been published.
I was going to enter this several years ago (late '80s), but never got around to sending in my entries. I have no shame, so here is what I was going to send (warning: tasteless and offensive material ahead):
• "My encounter with the Genie didn't turn out half bad," thought Lance as he sat down at the tiny piano to rehearse for his new job with the circus.
• David Ben MacGoldstein was considered cheap even by the other Scottish Jews.
• Dave's theory that placing a metal plate in the microwave oven would shunt away the dangerous radiation, thus making it safe to dry the cat, proved to be wrong, although the experiment was not a total loss, for Dave was at least able to prove that Fluffy did NOT have nine lives.
• As he had done every evening for the past ten years, Bert poured himself a shot of whisky, and sat down to reflect on that strange twist of fate that led him, once the most respected student at Harvard Medical School, to become a veterinary proctologist.
• In the race for the "Best Serial Killer, 1991" award, Jeffrey Dahmer was eating up the competition.
• "Up, up, and away!" cried Bean Boy, America's newest Superhero, leaping toward the sky, as his unique method of propulsion ensured that the uncounscious criminals would remain that way until the police arrived.
These are very clever! I use fortune on my command line, and sometimes it spits out stuff from the Contest. Maybe you should try submit a PR to fortune? ;)
"E-mail entries should be in the body of the message, not in an attachment (and it would be really swell if you submitted your entries in Arial 12 font)."
I don't understand. Maybe because I've only used Mutt for 20 years. Is it a joke?
Staring at the Braille-like letters formed of gargantuan pixels on the screen with the finesse of sandbags being hurtled in place against the torrent of information pouring down his Ethernet connection, the notion of finely crafting the text of an email message with the pristine elegance of detail rendered to the precision of not just the vulgarity of a "dozen" but to the exactness of "12" typesetter's points escaped him like a pedigree-free canine chasing a slobber-laden ball.
I think it's a polite way of requesting that emails not use garish fonts and colors. Just imagine how many submissions he must get in illegible "handwriting" fonts.
Parent uses "Mutt", an email program using a UI so old it's probably endorsed by the Society For Creative Anachronism; the notion of "fonts" or "colors" in email, however garish, is incomprehensible to him. For that email client, content is ASCII text, nothing more.
21 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 62.2 ms ] threadTo me, starting a story (or movie) in the middle a giant fight scene, and then jumping "12 hours earlier" is the contemporary equivalent lazy opening. It just means you're not trying, you're relying on convention to create drama.
"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, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."^[0]
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clifford
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose
Sample some mass-market Victorian fiction, and you'll find a lot of openers like that one. The style is anachronistic today, though it survives in some genres, and it has its famous practitioners. (George R.R. Martin is about as purple as they come.)
Charles Shculz, the creator of the Peanuts comic, regularly poked fun at Bulwer-Lytton's "It was a dark and stormy night..." until it became a running joke. Since Peanuts was published for nearly 50 years, the joke was well known.
The Bulwer-Lytton writing contest started quite a long time ago (80's) at San Jose State University, but I remember it was originally called a "Bad Writing Contest." Some support for my failing meatware memory can be found here:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/about.html
The only fashion that never goes out of style is poking fun at past fashions.
"Finally, in keeping with the gravitas, high seriousness, and general bignitude of the contest, the grand prize winner will receive … a pittance."
[0] http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html
• "My encounter with the Genie didn't turn out half bad," thought Lance as he sat down at the tiny piano to rehearse for his new job with the circus.
• David Ben MacGoldstein was considered cheap even by the other Scottish Jews.
• Dave's theory that placing a metal plate in the microwave oven would shunt away the dangerous radiation, thus making it safe to dry the cat, proved to be wrong, although the experiment was not a total loss, for Dave was at least able to prove that Fluffy did NOT have nine lives.
• As he had done every evening for the past ten years, Bert poured himself a shot of whisky, and sat down to reflect on that strange twist of fate that led him, once the most respected student at Harvard Medical School, to become a veterinary proctologist.
• In the race for the "Best Serial Killer, 1991" award, Jeffrey Dahmer was eating up the competition.
• "Up, up, and away!" cried Bean Boy, America's newest Superhero, leaping toward the sky, as his unique method of propulsion ensured that the uncounscious criminals would remain that way until the police arrived.
I don't understand. Maybe because I've only used Mutt for 20 years. Is it a joke?