Turning, I mentally digested all of what you, the reader, are about to find out heartbreakingly.
— 2001 Lyttle Lytton Contest winner
There's just so much and so many different kinds of badness packed into these sixteen words that it's hard to know where to begin. From the fact that we meet our protagonist in the middle of turning ("So, what're you doing this afternoon?" "Enh, thought I'd turn for a bit.") to the slightly dodgily-phrased non-action of mental digestion, to the implication that the entire novel that is to follow is occurring to the narrator in mid-turn, to the mid-sentence time-out for a reminder that the reader is, in fact, the reader, to perhaps the clumsiest attempt at pathos I've ever seen (tacking "heartbreakingly" on at the end in, "oh, yeah, almost forgot!" fashion), this is a true tour de force.
Database Dated : 1/15/2026 7:02:13 PM