# Truly terrible lines



## squidtender (Jun 7, 2013)

While writing tonight, I just came up with one of the worst lines I've written . . . possibly ever. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd share it with all of you kind folks (FYI, I erased it right after I wrote it). Here's my gem:

_*The world grew dark as the seconds inched along like slugs in pudding. 
*_

Now your turn! Give me a terrible line of yours or one you've read in a book. The uglier, the better :icon_cheesygrin:


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## Lewdog (Jun 7, 2013)

I hate to break this to you, but pudding has salt in it, so wouldn't the slug just start to melt into the pudding?  Man that is a pretty gross thought.


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## squidtender (Jun 7, 2013)

Think you missed the point, LD.


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## Lewdog (Jun 7, 2013)

squidtender said:


> Think you missed the point, LD.



Slugs don't have points!  Well they have these little antennas that kind of look like horns.    I get the idea that it is a really terrible line, but I'm just saying it could be impossible for a slug to inch through pudding!


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## squidtender (Jun 7, 2013)

](*,)


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## squidtender (Jun 7, 2013)

For inspiration, here's the winners of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest for the worst lines: 2012 Contest Winners » The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest


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## Blade (Jun 7, 2013)

squidtender said:


> Think you missed the point, LD.


:scratch: I think that he actually enhanced it. He extracted a practical fallacy from a line that was so tortured that the nonsense probably would have eluded the notice of most readers.

In any case is the challenge here to create appalling lines on our own initiative?en: Lines like that are as rare as black Swans and would hit trash immediately for most people.:shame:


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## Lewdog (Jun 7, 2013)

Blade said:


> :scratch: I think that he actually enhanced it. He extracted a practical fallacy from a line that was so tortured that the nonsense probably would have eluded the notice of most readers.
> 
> In any case is the challenge here to create appalling lines on our own initiative?en: Lines like that are as rare as black Swans and would hit trash immediately for most people.:shame:




Yes!  I am great at finding non-sense out of non-sense.

:cookie:


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## Kyle R (Jun 7, 2013)

Oh, fun! 

Author: Dan Brown
Book: _The Da Vinci Code_

_Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of power had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still reeling from the blow.
_
Not the kaleidoscope of power! Anything but that! Well, at least they didn't discover what was hidden in the other box: the binoculars of doom! I'd hate for them to shake those, too.


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## Kyle R (Jun 7, 2013)

squidtender said:


> While writing tonight, I just came up with one of the worst lines I've written . . . possibly ever. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd share it with all of you kind folks (FYI, I erased it right after I wrote it). Here's my gem:
> 
> _*The world grew dark as the seconds inched along like slugs in pudding.
> *_
> ...



You could rewrite it in the style of Cormac McCarthy and what was one a wince-worthy line would then become prose of the highest order! 

_
The world grew dark and the seconds inched along like slugs in pudding and the boy asked, Papa? Will you read me a story? And the man coughed and fixed the wheel on the cart and while the seconds slugged along and the hills were fire and flame and ash the great endless scar of trees and time and the slugs and pudding were enough to last all of their days he finally said, Yes. Of course I will._


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## Blade (Jun 7, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> Yes!  I am great at finding non-sense out of non-sense.
> 
> :cookie:


Well as person with no interest in either puddings or slugs it would certainly have gotten past me.

Possibly squidtender is just taken back a little by his own talent.


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## ppsage (Jun 7, 2013)

I've salted slugs before and I don't think there's enough in pudding to do much to one.


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## squidtender (Jun 7, 2013)

Blade said:


> In any case is the challenge here to create appalling lines on our own initiative?en: :shame:



Nope . . . has to something you wrote with the intention of using, or something you actually DID use. Or, something you've read from someone else's work (like Kyle used Dan Brown, which was fantastic). The link was only to get your memory churning


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## Staff Deployment (Jun 7, 2013)

As an extra challenge, I found a line of mine that is horrendous, and yet that I still wholly intend on leaving in.



> He and I are just a set of never-ending informational von Neumann devices.



Wasn't so hard. Let's find another.



> Little streaks of bright red blood slip through the traditional black bile.



Okay, well that's two, but I suppose I don't have m–



> The Demon is quite clearly one hundred percent evil.



I may have a probl–



> Trees erupt with a loud whoooof.



Help m–



> At some point during the ordeal, I realize this is an inaccurate brigantine.



Okay yeah I'm done.


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## squidtender (Jun 7, 2013)

That's just a huge, steaming, pile of awesome, SD. I love it! :thumbl:


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## Rustgold (Jun 7, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> I hate to break this to you, but pudding has salt in it, so wouldn't the slug just start to melt into the pudding?  Man that is a pretty gross thought.


Maybe it's a really horrible pudding without salt.


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## Pluralized (Jun 7, 2013)

> The blast of searing  hot air combined with the unceasing honking of horns pressed Jacob’s jet lag through its birth canal and laid it heavily on his shoulders.



This is not my worst, but probably the worst one I'll share.


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## JosephB (Jun 7, 2013)

I can't find any terrible lines in my work -- so here's one from none other than Ernest Hemingway:

_Just before the Puerta del Sol he turned into a café._

Poof! You're a café!


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## Dave Watson (Jun 7, 2013)

Came up with this belter the other day. I'll come back to it once I've got the first draft done and see how it sounds then...

"Ian knew first hand that when you figure out that the existence you think you know is just a single thin layer in an infinite and insane onion, the realisation is traumatic to say the least."

An insane onion?! What the hell?


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## squidtender (Jun 7, 2013)

Your insane onion brings me tears of happiness, Dave :smiley_simmons:


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## Sam (Jun 7, 2013)

"My teeth mashed together with an audible grinding sound." 

From _Twilight. _Aside from the fact that the entire sentence is a redundancy, Meyer also doesn't even know what word to use: *

Mash [verb] "To reduce to a soft pulpy state by beating or pressure". *

*Gnash [verb] "To strike or grind (the teeth) together". 

*If you're mashing your teeth like potatoes, you really should make an appointment with a dentist post-haste.


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## Dave Watson (Jun 8, 2013)

squidtender said:


> Your insane onion brings me tears of happiness, Dave :smiley_simmons:



Cheers, Sam. Personally I don't know whether it makes me want to laugh or cry. Probably both.


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## Pluralized (Jun 8, 2013)

I'm not sure I like this game. I'm finding all kinds of truly terrible lines in some of my earliest works. Like this one, from the same story as the previous:



> He breathed in, the flurry of smells made him hungry and nauseated, an olfactory game was played in his mind, with offensive moves orchestrated by fried curry leaves and diesel fuel, the pungency of sewage shifted into tandem defense with the scent of Medimix soap, wafting in the thick air.




Tandem defense, indeed.


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## SarahStrange (Jun 8, 2013)

> "Are you ready?" He mewled smirking at me like a mother hamster about to eat her three legged young."



Really? Are you for _serious_ E. L. James? When people say they actually _like _50 Shades of Grey, I have to physically prevent myself from vomiting on them. With writing like this, how is it even published? I just... I don't get it. The whole 'all women have an inner desire to be submissive' thing (which was her idea behind the book) is seriously creepy, but the actual writing is horrendous too. When a friend pointed this out to me, I almost suffocated I laughed so hard. Oh boy. 

​


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## Sam (Jun 8, 2013)

Another belter from _Twilight: _

"Just then my air choked off -- Jacob grabbed me up in a bear hug too tight to breathe". 

](*,)


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## Sam (Jun 8, 2013)

In case anyone is wondering -- you _cannot _'choke someone's air off' by giving them a bear hug. You constrict the diaphragm so they pass out from compression asphyxia. 'Choking' implies the constriction of the larynx, either by cutting off the supply of air or blood from passing through the neck and thereby rendering a victim unconscious or, if the hold is applied for too long, dead. One is an air choke, the other a blood choke, and the one to which Meyer refers is known as a 'bodylock' -- which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with choking.


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## PiP (Jun 8, 2013)

SarahStrange said:


> Oh boy.



I think that should be "Oh my..."


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## squidtender (Jun 8, 2013)

Funny how three bestsellers (fifty shades, Twilight and Da Vinci Code) are in this thread. Goes to show how you don't need perfect (or even coherent) sentences to sell books.


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## Blade (Jun 8, 2013)

squidtender said:


> Funny how three bestsellers (fifty shades, Twilight and Da Vinci Code) are in this thread. Goes to show how you don't need perfect (or even coherent) sentences to sell books.


Thanks. I think this thread needed a little injection of optimism. :sunny:


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## squidtender (Jun 8, 2013)

Blade said:


> Thanks. I think this thread needed a little injection of optimism. :sunny:



No, no . . . I was talking to myself. Your sentences need to be PERFECT! :icon_cheesygrin: layful:


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## Meli (Jun 8, 2013)

squidtender said:


> Funny how three bestsellers (fifty shades, Twilight and Da Vinci Code) are in this thread. Goes to show how you don't need perfect (or even coherent) sentences to sell books.


People are remarkably good at making sense of nonsense.




Unmasking the Face on Mars - NASA Science


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## Tiamat (Jul 10, 2013)

"The two pressures finally met in the back of her throat when a wail like a wounded dolphin escaped her lips."

I actually laughed out loud when I wrote that.  Then I took a moment to savor my own unintentional comedic genius before vigorously pressing the backspace key.


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## Sam (Jul 10, 2013)

Tiamat said:


> "The two pressures finally met in the back of her throat when a wail like a wounded dolphin escaped her lips."
> 
> I actually laughed out loud when I wrote that.  Then I took a moment to savor my own unintentional comedic genius before vigorously pressing the backspace key.



*Cringegroan*


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## Myers (Jul 10, 2013)

Tiamat said:


> "The two pressures finally met in the back of her throat when a wail like a wounded dolphin escaped her lips."



Was the dolphin physically wounded or did someone just hurt its feelings? Because that would make a difference.


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## Dave Watson (Jul 10, 2013)

"Although he of course had the natural male urge to do so, Ian refrained from running his thumb along the edge of the sword blade to gauge its sharpness. He felt it was safe to assume that the ancient weapon was well honed, possessing of razor like keenness and precision fit to shape a midge’s goatee."


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## J Anfinson (Jul 10, 2013)

Here's a little snippet from one of my first shorts I wrote. Should be self explanatory why it's been banished to my junk folder.

"After the demon was bored with the current torture, which probably took a while, it threw the whip to the floor and turned back to the table."


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