I enjoyed Phil’s link to this year’s Bulwer-Lytton Award finalists so much that I thought that instead of trying to say anything coherent tonight, I’d just craft my own opening for a detective novel I would rather undergo minor surgery than read.
Det. Dierdre Hamerstein was just finishing up the paperwork from tonight’s arrest, adjusting the sling in which the emergency medics had put her arm after the .45 shell had ripped through her shoulder, when Lieutenant Greese swung his pendulous belly through the office door with that familiar, “I’ve got a high-profile murder and I need to put my best detective on it, even if she is a girl and has lost three pints of blood tonight” look on his insensitive face.
Ha!! I love it. I want to read a first chapter of that junk.
I wrote a noir parody (called “Dead Men Don’t Do Lunch”) years ago for a creative writing class. At the time, I was particularly proud of the run-on first sentence.
The problem with parody is not the beginning; it is sustaining it in good form for more than a few paragraphs.
That’s what makes the Bulwer-Lytton template so delightful.