Greetings, TD. As we see the year come stumbling at last to its end, I think it's time to revive one of my favorite prompts of years past, which has graced two prior new-year TDs: the Little Lytton Contest.

For those who haven't heard of it, the Little Lytton is an online contest (similar to the larger and better-known Bulwer-Lytton contest) for writing the worst possible first sentence of a novel. For this prompt, I want you to take one of the Godawful sentences from the website and use it as the first sentence of your own, non-bad submission. You're not required to copy the sentence's style verbatim, but it should be a coherent first sentence to your narrative. You may choose your own sentence or have me pick one for you. If you choose your own, your word limit is 1500 words. If you have me assign one, your word limit is 1000. This is not first-come-first-served; if everyone wants the same sentence, take it, it's the holidays.

Standard TD rules apply: no erotica, fanfiction, Google Docs, political screeds, dick pics, etc. Use this to guide your choices, and godspeed.