DARK AND STORMY NIGHTS

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

“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.”

– opening sentence of Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Three of the best known openings to the written word are:

• In the beginning
• Once upon a time
• It was a dark and stormy night

Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s is famous for being the worst opening of all time. There’s even an annual contest to see who can concoct the absolute worst possible beginning to a story.

There have been some strong contenders through the years and a few have been collected by Scott Rice in It Was A Dark and Stormy Night: A Collection of the Worst Fiction Ever Written *Leather bound hardback not to be confused with the original Dark & Stormy Night published in 1984.

Borrowing just a bit from Kermit the Frog, I say, “It’s not easy . . . starting a story so badly.”

“As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.” – Dan McKay, Fargo, ND (2005 winner)

“Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.” – Jim Guigli, Carmichael, CA (2006 Winner)

“Gerald began – but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption. Not that it mattered much because for them “permanently” meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash – to pee.” – Jim Gleeson, Madison, WI (2007 winner)

And the 2008 winner is Garrison Spik of Washington, D.C. who wrote:

“ Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7. Steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”

Is the Bulwer-Lytton contest a good one to “win”? Maybe. Your words will be published and probably read as much or more than any author’s first sentence in a novel at the bookstore. That’s something.

My favorite take-off on The dark and stormy night beginning belongs to Charles Schultz. Who can forget Snoopy sitting atop his doghouse with a manual typewriter and the words “It was a dark and stormy night” typed across the top of the page? Like many of us writers, he receives rejection after rejection, but keeps writing and submitting anyway. That’s determination. Unfortunately, Snoopy doesn’t learn from his mistakes.

Snoopy makes me smile and sometimes laugh out loud. Sometimes, the rejections he receives hit close to home for me and I find myself empathizing. Snoopy represents everyone’s Inner Child wanting to play. Who doesn’t want to be Joe Cool? Or the Red Baron shooting down enemies in a dogfight in the air? Or a budding author finding just the right words to express his innermost feelings?

Sometimes it isn’t easy finding the right words to start a story. Sometimes it seems really easy to crank out bad opening after bad opening. For some odd reason, it isn’t quite as easy to do it on purpose. Maybe I should check out the comics and see what Snoopy’s up to today.