"She wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't"

From commenter Elizabeth: The Washington Post quotes from the winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel. (Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote "It was a dark and stormy night" for the opening to his very real novel PAUL CLIFFORD.) Read all the winners and dishonorable mentions, including implied atrocities against ham and a "royal spittle reader," here.

My favorite teacher in elementary school once assigned us to write stories based on the pictures and one-line captions in Chris van Allsburg's THE MYSTERIES OF HARRIS BURDICK; could not a high school teacher struggling with what to do in the last few days of the term ask students to write the rest of the story from these groaners?

(Title from the detective winner with this noir roarer: "She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't." - Eric Rice, Sun Prairie, WI)