There is Nothing Wrong with: “It was a dark stormy night”

There is nothing wrong with this much maligned opening line.  The FULL opening line tells a different story.

"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."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

The criticism of “It was a dark story night,” was not earned all on its own.  It had help. A LOT of it from the long run on sentence reminiscent of the hook in an agent query letter.  So “It was a dark stormy night” in and of itself is NOT a bad thing. 

What if your story starts out on a dark stormy night?  What if it’s actually an integral part of the opening scene?  I can’t very well have my heroine, running from her abusive husband; put her car into a ditch on a beautiful sunny day can I?  “It was a beautiful sunny day.  The sky was clear to the horizon, and the sun beating down heated the surface of the roadway giving her tires extra grip.  That would make her look incompetent behind the wheel.  You can excuse her if it was dark, it was stormy, and the dirt road had turned into very slippery mud.

This all came to mind because I have been thinking about my third, but as yet unpublished completed novel.  Still working on cover art.  I had an concept, but it just didn’t fit in the vertical format of a book cover.  Back to the old drawing board.  That was all it took for me to wonder if I should give it one more read through.  I hate it when I do that.