re: the bad fiction contest

Bogost sent me the link, and the page for the Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest is HERE.

However, I must confess that I never thought that “It was a dark and stormy night…” was an especially bad story opening in itself, nor do I even find the longer version especially appalling:

“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.”

–Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

I don’t see what’s so horrible about this that it deserved to be taken as an archetypal case of bad fiction writing. Granted, the parenthetical “(for it is in London that our scene lies)” sounds like weak proto-Dickens. But the images aren’t out of control here, and there’s a certain vivid effect to the passage. I think it’s a bit long and cluttered for a first sentence, but otherwise wouldn’t have thought to mock this sentence if I’d encountered it on my own.