Wednesday 30 January 2013

The Wordmaster Challenge: Why I Don't Write Chick Lit

So, it's Wednesday and it's on to my second bloghop of three this week. I know some people take part in multiple ones on the same day, but this is more than enough work for me!

The lovely Misha Gericke came up with an excellent idea to have a bit of fun and stretch our writing muscles with the Wordmaster Challenge. Every month she will post a writing challenge on a different theme. When I saw the theme for the first challenge I couldn't resist signing up. Our task was, in less than 300 words, to write the worst novel opening we could think of. How hard can it be, right?! Well, I was quite surprised!

I had loads of fun writing my entry and hope it is suitably awful. Please note this is not meant to offend any writers or fans of chick lit. I know there are some superb examples of the genre out there because I've read some of them! Think of it more as a gentle roasting of the worst aspects of the genre. I could have done the same thing with fantasy or sci-fi.

So, I present to you the opening of what I hope would be the worst chick lit novel ever, in 297 words. Strap yourself in!

*

It had been another long, bewilderingly boring day at work. Claire stepped off the bus near the corner of the gloomy street where she lived in South London and began to trudge boredly up the road. She glanced at her watch: half past seven in the evening and there was a light drizzle in the air, which didn’t exactly help to lift the vague mood of depressed blahness that she had been noticing for weeks now.

Walking up the short flight of stairs to Flat 3, she fumbled distractedly to retrieve her keyring which featured the beloved pink troll which meant so much to her, before unlocking the door which was painted an unsavoury shade of dark beige – probably the worst thing about the flat, she thought to herself annoyedly – and pushed it open, before wrenching off her sensible shoes, which she had to wear working as an accountant at a law firm, although they were uncomfortable, and expensive too, and shuffled into a pair of fluffy blue slippers with little bunny’s ears and faces on them, a relic of her student days; she considered that she had probably outgrown them at 37, but some things were too hard to let go of, and they were of great sentimental value.

Claire was fed up. When was a dashing, tall, dark stranger going to charge in on a white steed and sweep her off her feet? I mean, hello. She’d been single for, like, ever. Her biological clock was ticking loudly. There must be a man out there as desperate for a baby as she was.

She sighed exasperatedly and opened the fridge. She hoped ardently that a large glass of medium-priced red wine and Dirty Dancing on Channel 5 would provide the answer to her multitudinous problems.

*

Did you enjoy that? Go to the linky list to check out more bad beginnings! Thanks for this fun challenge, Misha!


27 comments:

Empty Nest Insider said...

Wow, you are good at being bad! This sounds like the perfect revenge for having to sit through lousy chick flicks! I especially enjoyed the sentence that wouldn't die! This was fun! Julie

Kyra Lennon said...

Lmao! It takes some serious skill for a good writer to write like a bad writer!

Anonymous said...

Hilarious! Thanks for the chuckle, especially towards the end. This was a great bad beginning.

S.P. Bowers said...

Did I enjoy it? Yes! Would I read a book that started that way? No! So well done.

JeffO said...

I actually did enjoy that!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

That second paragraph was all one sentence - good job!

Karen Baldwin said...

I just O.D'd on adjectives and adverbs.

Christine Rains said...

*LOL* That was hilarious!

DRC said...

Bad! Bad! Bad! But a good example of a bad opening...lol

ilima said...

Dirty Dancing, haha. This was terrible, I loved it!

Elizabeth Seckman said...

Sadly,I resemble that chick...all the way down to the bunny slippers and the good luck troll key chain! So all cheese aside, I enjoyed it! :)

Anonymous said...

Not bad at all! It's always so fun to write outside your chosen genre. You never what you're going to learn about yourself as a writer! :-)

kjmckendry said...

I loved its awfulness! Great overuse of adverbs and I just totally loved the long winded sentences which didn't want to stop.

Nicole said...

Ooh, yikes. Wonderfully bad!

Luanne G. Smith said...

That was stupendously, wonderfully, ridiculously, well, what can I say, I nearly kicked my pink slippers off and danced to "I Will Survive" when I read that. :))

Misha Gerrick said...

Hahahaha nicely done! Or badly done in a good way. :-P

I was giggling all the way through, because you managed to fit a lot of cliche in.

Will be back again to judge compared to the other entries. And thank you for entering!

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed the read, you certainly are very good.

Yvonne.

Golden Eagle said...

That was so funny. And while I don't usually mind them, I have to say this was a great example of how exactly not to use adverbs!

Susan Flett Swiderski said...

Good job! I mean, really... an awesome stink!

Lisa Regan said...

Hah! This is great! I especially love all the words ending in -ly! Well done! Hah hah hah.

Cynthia said...

Haha, there was certainly a comedic undertone in this beginning. Very enjoyable to read, even though it was supposed to be "bad."

Nick Wilford said...

Julie - Thanks! I actually like some chick flicks, but there are some really bad ones out there. My wife isn't that big on them anyway!

Kyra - Lol, I think it's easier to be average than downright bad. :)

Medeia - Thanks! Glad it made you chuckle.

Sara - Job done, then. Thanks!

Jeff - A man of strange tastes!

Alex - Thanks! I was quite pleased with it.

Em - Lol. Pretty sure "annoyedly" and "boredly" aren't real words!

Christine - Thanks!

DRC - Thanks... I think!

Ilima - It's a good cliche film to use. Glad you "liked" it!

Elizabeth - Lol. Well, I'm glad you identified... hopefully not too much!

Nick Wilford said...

CB - Thanks! Wow, I could have a promising sideline in chick lit, maybe use Nicola as a pseudonym. Good to know!

Kathy - Thanks! It was definitely a lot of fun. :)

Nicole - Thanks, glad you think so!

L.G. - Thanks, I'm glad to have provoked such a great reaction. :)

Misha - Thanks! And thank you for the challenge.

Yvonne - Thanks - you should love my "normal" stuff, then!!

Golden - Thanks. I enjoyed misusing them muchly!

Susan - Haha, hold your nose. Thanks!

Lisa - Thanks! Those adverbs certainly seem to have gone down well.

Cynthia - Thanks! I hoped it would be amusing.

Melissa said...

hahahahaha xD I think paragraph 2 is officially the longest sentence I've ever read. *fingers hovering and twitching above red pen*

Good (er I mean bad) job, Nick! :D

Crystal Collier said...

Nicely done. I mean, badly done. I mean... Great entry. =)

Mark said...

Great stuff Nick:) Thanks for stopping by my blog too:)

Alice said...

The worst part is that I'm sure I've read this in published form.... =)
"the vague mood of depressed blahness" is my favourite part.