It was a dark and stormy night

[nq:1]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
I've often wondered myself. It seems no worse than "It was the best of times ,it was the worst of times.

[nq:2]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
[nq:1]I've often wondered myself. It seems no worse than "It was the best of times ,it was the worst of times.[/nq]
It may have been fine first time round, but the sentence, or at least the melodramatically ominous weather it describes, became a cliché for setting the mood of horror

[nq:1]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
The novel Paul Clifford , by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, begins thus:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), r

[nq:2]I've often wondered myself. It seems no worse than "It was the best of times ,it was the worst of times.[/nq]
[nq:1]It may have been fine first time round, but the sentence, or at least the melodramatically ominous weather it describes, became a cliché for setting the mood of horror stories and films. Alan Jones[/nq]
Has it been used more than once? And horror movies thrive on cliche

[nq:2]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
[nq:1]The novel Paul Clifford , by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, begins thus: "It was a dark and stormy night; the ... caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual."[/nq]
Were thet dual downdraft?

[nq:2]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
[nq:1]The novel Paul Clifford , by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, begins thus: "It was a dark and stormy night; the ... See http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ for the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. I really like th

[nq:1]Was it bad at the time - 1830?[/nq]
Nothing is good or bad unless we think it is. In 1830, I'm sure the paragraph-masquerading-as-a-sentence was perfectly fine.

Michael DeBusk, Co-Conspirator to Make the World a Better Place Did he update http://home.earthlink.net/~debu4335/ yet?

[nq:1]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
It's supposed to be trite. If I read very very much, I might know if it is.
I'm sure it was fine, maybe great, the first time it was used.

Also, since the line is famous, its use now would show the author was relying on someone else's work. If this were the first sentence of

[nq:1]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
It's too "gothic". Unless it's a gothic novel, of course.

Adrian

[nq:1]"It was a dark and stormy night" Why is this considered such a bad opening sentence for a novel?[/nq]
Google Bulwer-Lytton and you will find out. One of this Victorian author's more banal novels started wiith this sentence: so the annual bad writing competition (U.Calif. at San Jose) was named for him.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)