Every year, the announcement of Bulwer-Lytton Prize is a gift from bad writing heaven. Inspired by novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s famous “it was a dark and stormy night” opener, the contest asks writers to submit an opening sentence for the “worst of all possible novels” — although Fifty Shades of Grey has already been written. The results are perennially astounding, with entries in every genre from Children’s Literature to Spy Novels, and one sentence awarded the dubious honor of the worst sentence of the year. It’s like the Razzies, but better.

Here are some of the best entries from the past decade of the contest, each of them just as wonderfully atrocious as the next. Think you can write a sentence that’s worse? Leave your (unofficial) submission in the comments.

1. Sue Fondrie

Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into…