The Lyttle Lytton Contest
`The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to pen the world’s most atrocious first line to a novel. [..] An example from the 2000 contest, singled out by the contest organizer as an especially strong contender:
Gwendolyn, a world-class mountaineer, summoned the last of her strength for one more heroic haul on the nylon strap (for she was, after so many failed attempts, dangerously close to exhaustion) and looked heavenward with resolve, aware that, in spite of her fatigue and anguish, she must breach the crevice in one well-coordinated movement, somehow cleave the smooth fissure with the flimsy synthetic strand even though she was chaffed raw by her repeated efforts, or more sensibly, just give the heave-ho to this new-fangled (and painfully small) Victoria’s Secret thong and slip into her well-worn — and infinitely more roomy — knickers.’
