> > > A friend of mine is an English major, and a fairly decent writer. She usually has a class each semester where the students trade and critique each others' work. The passage mentioned below reminded me of a lot of the stuff she brings home to read.
> > >
> > > Bal"Maybe their strength lies in something other than prose"anthalus
> >
> > Darn, I wish I'd known about that... I really should have, too, considering it's done by the English department at my university, and I'm a creative writing minor... bah!
> >
> > At least it's bad on purpose. It's when you get things like that written in all seriousness that it's truly frightening...
> >
> > Sosi"Bill and Sue had never met, and were as nervous as two hummingbirds who had also never met"qui
>
>
> Actually, that one may not have been written in all seriousness. On a list of "worst analogies..." I found a bunch by the same guy that I suspect were tongue in cheek. Among them, the following:
>
> "John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met."
>
> "Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center."
>
> "The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't."
>
> They strike me as rather clever. I insist on believing the badness is intentional (if only to help me sleep at night.)

Yes, it is intentional. These aren't bad first lines from *real* books, they are consciously bad imaginary first lines that people have invented solely for the competition. I don't find it very funny for that reason. I used to have a book of Bulwer-Lytton Contest entries and winners, and many of the lines were hilarious in themselves, but it's all too contrived for my liking.

A competition for bad lines from *genuine* published books would be far funnier, in my opinion.

Brunnen-"quite apart from how that 'bowling ball' line is plagiarised directly from an intentionally humorous line in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"G