We've decided to forsake our standard opening - "Welcome to this week's selection of Picks..." - for something different. We'd like to take this time to compose a line or two for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, where the objective is to write a truly bad opening sentence for a truly bad novel. This year you can submit your entries and read past "winners" online. What kind of "truly bad" are we talking about? "The surface of the strange, forbidden planet was roughly textured and green, much like cottage cheese gets way after the date on the lid says it is all right to buy it." Peruse this site for a grand collection of hilariously awful opening lines that never were. And here goes our effort:
"Welcome to this week's selection of Picks," he grimaced. Though of course it was more of a smile than a grimace, like when you think back to the time you visited Barbara's Tales of the Wooden Spoon, a fun collection of urban legends, strange stories and unusual facts. Yes, the kind of smile that arrives when remembering the true story of The Cross-Coupled Couples, in which an "adulterous couple discovers their spouses are also having an affair." But more of a look than a smile even, the kind of look that transfigures your face after reading about the Body under the Bed - which apparently is a true story and has happened a lot, most often to German tourists. Okay, maybe it was a grimace.
Try again. How about this opening:
They wanted to welcome everyone to this week's selection of Picks, but they couldn't stop playing with travlang's Translating Dictionaries, a rather large collection of foreign language dictionaries gathered together in one place. While translating from Afrikaans to German and from English to Portuguese, while comparing Danish to English (and more), they were continually amazed by the fact that for every word in one language there was another, different word in another language. Weird, they decided.
Hmm. Maybe begin this way:
"Welcome to this week's selection of Picks," they said, though what they really wanted to do was visit Ireland. They'd recently seen Bord Fáilte, the official site of the Irish Tourist Board. Here, they'd learned about all aspects of the country's tourism, including accommodations, fun activites, destinations and more. The site allowed them to build a personal brochure, where they'd collected information on the Edenderry Angling Festival, the Limerick International Band Festival, a driving tour of Killarney and o' so much more. Let's go to Dublin, they thought.
Maybe we should take a different approach. Open with:
What they said about this week's Picks fell on deaf ears, and so they decided to consult the Animated American Sign Language Dictionary. It seemed like a good idea. After all, the site was created to teach you more about ASL and the deaf community. It offered a growing, alphabetic list of words and their respective signs, and included an animated signing lesson for each word. They also found links to ASL and deaf resources online, among other things. Try as they might, though, they couldn't find the sign for "Yahoo!" - but they imagined this would come with time.
We may be on to something with that opening, but let's give it one more shot:
Things had become so strange regarding this week's selection of Picks, that they imagined next they'd be offered the opportunity to buy land on Mars or something. Then they realized it wouldn't be "or something", because it turns out they could already buy land on Mars. In fact, thanks to Lands of the Universe, one square mile on the red planet only costs $29.95. For an extra $12.95 they could get a coffee mug, too. They wondered if this was a special offer. Hmm?
Hey, look, it's either this or plumb the depths of FindLaw's searchable database of Supreme Court decisions since 1937. The comprehensive legal resource is also browsable by year and by US Reports volume number, amongst other things. The decision is yours, we've made our case. Up to you: take your pick(s).
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