offensively curious or inquisitive.
Wrote a sentence for the Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest:
It is generally reckoned an incontrovertible truth that hot dogs remain safe and wholesome in their packaging long past the sell-by date, but we four intrepid men and women -- Harry the brave, Jane the eloquent, Charles the indomitable, and myself of no particular qualities -- have set out to prove the matter, one way or the other.
As commentators on the contest have often mentioned, writing deliberately bad work is hard. It's got to be ostensibly bad, but at the same time well-crafted enough to be funny, and, for this contest, there's the additional handicap of needing to seem unintentionally bad. That is, this has to be a plausible opening sentence for a genuine and sincere overwrought novel.
So yeah. It's not great, but I labor under substantial constraints. I think it's already barely keeping its bathos in check as is. Making it any sillier would destroy the entire effect. (On the other hand, this is a rule that the contest winners seem to ignore, and I think they come off better for it. Ah well, maybe next time.)
It is generally reckoned an incontrovertible truth that hot dogs remain safe and wholesome in their packaging long past the sell-by date, but we four intrepid men and women -- Harry the brave, Jane the eloquent, Charles the indomitable, and myself of no particular qualities -- have set out to prove the matter, one way or the other.
As commentators on the contest have often mentioned, writing deliberately bad work is hard. It's got to be ostensibly bad, but at the same time well-crafted enough to be funny, and, for this contest, there's the additional handicap of needing to seem unintentionally bad. That is, this has to be a plausible opening sentence for a genuine and sincere overwrought novel.
So yeah. It's not great, but I labor under substantial constraints. I think it's already barely keeping its bathos in check as is. Making it any sillier would destroy the entire effect. (On the other hand, this is a rule that the contest winners seem to ignore, and I think they come off better for it. Ah well, maybe next time.)