This week's prompt is the simplest one I could think of: it was a dark and stormy night. The cliche of cliches when it comes to writing. I chose this one out of laziness at first, and then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense: turn a cliche into something worth reading. The first author to coin this phrase was Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his book Paul Clifford:
"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."
His first line became iconic, and generations later one of his descendents opted to defend his name by creating the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which features stories with lines like "it was a dark and stormy night."
Sometimes an author dealing with writer's block will have an idea but have no clue how to start their story. Sometimes getting past the beginning is the hardest part! Here's an article from Writer's Digest that discusses starting a novel. They make a point that your story should begin with a hook. Every good writer knows that you can't expect people to read your work unless you pull them in right away. If you think that a cliche is a good way to do that then go for it!
Sometimes an author dealing with writer's block will have an idea but have no clue how to start their story. Sometimes getting past the beginning is the hardest part! Here's an article from Writer's Digest that discusses starting a novel. They make a point that your story should begin with a hook. Every good writer knows that you can't expect people to read your work unless you pull them in right away. If you think that a cliche is a good way to do that then go for it!