No, I'm perfectly happy throwing out the whole book on literary techniques. It all goes back to Bulwer-Lytton: Sure - that ain't great. But it's evocative. And it's 160 years old. And, you know, fuck off to everyone: "Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police..." That ain't bad. Compare to James Fucking Fenimore Cooper: But Cooper is shoved down the throats of high school students everywhere while Bulwer-Lytton gets the shit kicked out of him by smarmy, know-it-all English majors every goddamn year. For the record: The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold The arch-enchanters wand! — itself is nothing! — But taking sorcery from the master-hand To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword — States can be saved without it! - Edward Bulwer-Lytton You might not call the Twilight opener a bad sentence, but the number of people hating on Twilight outnumbers the number of people living in the Western hemisphere. Do they hate on Marquez? No, they hate on you for not having read Marquez. Likewise, it is the most common thing in the world to hate the fuck out of Da Vinci Code without having read the Da Vinci Code. And that's the fundamental shape of these "contests" - "write something that you'd make fun of other people for reading." And they all have unsold novels, and they all have a bookshelf full of shit "you haven't heard of" (even when you have) and they're all very, very proud that they have a very good degree from a very good school that doesn't provide them a very good living. No, seriously. Fuck this shit. It's the attitude that makes "literature" "anything you wouldn't read for fun."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), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
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), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary way.
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great