It was a dark and stormy night...

You might recognize the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night..." as a classic way to begin a ghost tale, but did you know that it was actually from a real novel? It was called Paul Clifford, and it was written in 1870 by a man named Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. The rest of the opening line goes like this:

"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."

It isn't, you might say, a terribly good bit of writing. After all, it's just about what the rain does. So every year, there is a contest to see who can write the worst opening line for a novel. Check out the website here. You can see a list of winners here. Care to write your own? Post it as a comment to this post; better yet, enter it in the Bulwer-Lytton contest!