"Heh heh heh," everyone said.

April 22, 2015 9:39 AM

The 2015 Lyttle Lytton results are in.

The Lyttle Lytton Contest is Adam Cadre's annual solicitation for the worst possible opening lines for an imaginary novel (within 200 characters or less).

Previous contests on Metafilter:

2014

Obama chuckled. "You mean the Chaos Emeralds?"

2013

For years, scientists have been trying to harness the raw power of an eclipse.

2012

"I’m a winner," thought Seabiscuit, galloping across the finish line.

2009

I have the ability to go through time, he suddenly remembered while at a bus stop near a tree.

2004

This is the story of your mom's life.

posted by Iridic (20 comments total)

> Night falls in East L.A. with the crimson blood of men, as the day rises with women’s tears.

Lolellroy
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:47 AM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

The dystopian ones pale next to DystopianYA.
posted by jeather at 9:59 AM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

“Bees are good,” Obama says, as children scream.

Well, great, now I've gone and sprayed coffee everywhere.
posted by billybunny at 10:12 AM on April 22, 2015 [8 favorites]

Almost every novel my writer friends hand me to read open with lines this bad.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:15 AM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

I drew my customized Kimber 1911 .45, with the Pachmayr grips and skeletonized trigger, and leveled it coolly at the African-Americans.

Well I guess the Sad Puppies can be happy about having an award that favours them.
posted by Artw at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2015 [16 favorites]

I'm always up for a sentence that contains the word 'tocsin'.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2015

I'm always up for a sentence that contains the word 'tocsin'.

And I, in contrary distinction, am always down for the same, said the Queen, finally concluding a wink she had begun almost an hour earlier.
posted by clockzero at 10:40 AM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Obama's children were screaming because of the bee tocsin. True story!
posted by chavenet at 10:49 AM on April 22, 2015

Oh my god, those are so good.
posted by Poppa Bear at 11:14 AM on April 22, 2015

The Card Cheat: "Night falls in East L.A. with the crimson blood of men, as the day rises with women’s tears."

Honestly, this one is almost good. It's a fine line sometimes.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:19 AM on April 22, 2015

"Night falls in East L.A. with the crimson blood of men, as the day rises with women’s tears." is the last track on Godspeed! You Black Emperors latest LP
posted by fallingbadgers at 11:23 AM on April 22, 2015 [8 favorites]

I LOL'd at work over the one about the vulvae, and there's absolutely nobody here I can explain it to.
posted by scratch at 11:24 AM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Many of these feel too long, given the contest's raison d'être.

But "They had the mettle of men, and yet they ate the biscuits of dogs" is just about perfect.
posted by Shmuel510 at 1:07 PM on April 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

The Obama/bees is one of my favorite headlines ever. It's up there with "Chardonnay and a Shot in the Face" (a Times-Picayune article about "botox parties") and "Horse Herpes Outbreak Forces Rodeo Queens To Ride Stick Ponies".
posted by brundlefly at 2:06 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

I read this entry delightfully wrong:

“Mom,” I asked my mom. “What’s for breakfast?”

“You know I haven’t made breakfast since your father died in a mysterious car crash a year ago on your birthday,” she said sadly. “You have his eyes.”

I love the thought of the mom ending the exposition dump with "you have eyes." Like the emotional trainwreck of her husband's death is so obvious to anyone, that she's using the same exasperated tone she'd use if her child were seven and could not find their jacket even though, for the love of God, it's right there! Look, right in front of you!
posted by Banknote of the year at 3:07 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Cadre has also posted a followup concerning his decision to not include some worthy entries for the "Found" division.
posted by baf at 5:35 PM on April 22, 2015

One of the funniest lines, for me, was actually a comment by the guy in response to a found entry:

For Google executive Forrest Timothy Hayes, heroin was the killer app.

I look forward to the article that begins, "For the 51 passengers who plunged to their deaths off a cliff in Peru, the luxury motor coach that carried them was indeed the struggle bus."

posted by flippant at 12:33 AM on April 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

Decades ago, National Lampoon used to run a feature called "Lines From The Slushpile" which collected the worst lines from a real (but unnamed) publisher's stack of unsolicited manuscripts. The example that's always stuck in my mind was:

"Well," she said suavely, "viola for now."

More LoS winners in the second past down here.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:40 AM on April 23, 2015 [3 favorites]

The commentary is amazing as well.

Ten years ago in the war, the only thing in which I thought I would be was “the shit,” not this mansion where I live at now. -JJ Wright

The phrase "thing in which I thought I would be" is great, but let's not underestimate the heroic comedic work done by that humble "at".
posted by duffell at 11:02 AM on April 23, 2015

Clutching at his breast for laughter while at work, Duffell thought for not the first time nor the last that he had important things to accomplish that were not on the Internet.
posted by duffell at 11:20 AM on April 23, 2015