Write the worst possible opening to a novel, while still making it something that could be published. 35 word max.

On that fateful summer day, when the tornado left waves of destruction (and poor dear Garrett) in its wake, Mallory rediscovered her innocence.

K: This is possibly just bad in an ordinary way, but that almost makes it worse. There’s almost no entertainment value here and I can’t imagine the entire book would have any. BRONZE

DK: Good job with the parenthetical. That is nicely tailored to suggest character struggle with a tossed off central tragedy. And talking about rediscovered innocence can go nowhere interesting. BRONZE

MG: Now, I don’t want to read further than the start of this. But it’s not because of how badly it’s written. It’s because of how dull it sounds. I don’t know if I should reward that.

DK mentions three of the sins I threw in there: the inappropriate parenthetical, the tossed off tragedy, and the rediscovered innocence. I also threw in the word “fateful”, which should almost never be used. My favorite, though, it referring to a tornado making waves in its wake, which are nautical terms.

The Walrus conglomeration finished in first place for the first time, once again avoiding elimination. That leaves 20 people left in the competition, and we’re about to approach some of the more heavy writing.