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Please Comment: One Perfect Sentence

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New blog post by mickleinapickle

One Perfect Sentence

Posted on behalf of Peter Cox…

The prompt this month was to complete “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” in a novel way. In this, you manifestly succeeded In fact, this was arguably the best OPS contest we’ve run so far.

The results are as follows (remember, you voted for the winners, and each entry was anonymised):

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the first day of my School Summer holidays, and the day Jasper Herriot arrived on my street.”
For this masterfully foreboding YA opening, @Hannah F wins 100 LitCoins!

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, as the keynote speaker approached the podium in readiness to address the annual conference of the Chronically Undecided Society.”

Sly humour there! Congratulations to @Jonny for this – he wins 50 LitCoins!

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of change, it was the age of fixture, it was the epoch of hubris, it was the epoch of shame, it was the season of Love, it was the season of Hate, it was the spring of freedom, it was the winter of chains, we held the world in our hands, we held nothing but dreams, we were all to be Gods, we were all nothing but demons – in short, the passing of puberty is so unlike any other passing that its wildest and most diligent biographers insist on its being received, for joy or for ill, in the superlative degree of comparative states – our coming of age.”

Possibly one of the longest entries we’ve yet received, and worth every golden word… @Rich. wins 25 LitCoins!

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, for it was a tale of three mothers: The first having given her life to place him in this world, the second he had chosen to stand in her place, and the third saved them both from the incoming wall of water, and rode north to where the desert turned white.”

Which is a heck of an opening sentence, so in media res I can’t quite believe it! 10 LitCoins go to @Sarit.

I hope you enjoyed it, everyone – judging by the quality of entries, you did. Next month’s OPS starts on February 7th – I’m already looking forward to it – hope you are, too!


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