Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2005 Results

[danceswithcats]

This is some amusingly bad writing intended to be so. Kudos to my brother for the link.

[Askia]

I prefer the runner-up to this year’s contest winner, which I present to you in all its punnishing glory:

“When Detective Riggs was called to investigate the theft of a trainload of Native American fish broth concentrate bound for market, he solved the case almost immediately, being that the trail of clues led straight to the trainmaster, who had both the locomotive and the Hopi tuna tea.”

“locomotive and Hopi tuna tea.”

That… now that’s… I mean… Geez. There are no words.

[Scott_Plaid]

@Askia

“locomotive and Hopi tuna tea.”

Huh? ::Scratches head. I don’t get it.

O!

Wait a minute, I get it! It sounds like, “had both the motive and the opportunity.”

[Paul_in_Qatar]

I remember from an entry years ago…

“The gravel crunched under my shoes like a carpet of busted knuckles.” Great line.

[Wile_E]

Oh, what fun! Here’s two of my favorites.

The dragon cast his wet, rheumy eyes, heavy-lidded with misery, over his kingdom-a malodorous, rot-ridden swamp, with moss cloaking brooding, gloomy cypresses, tree trunks like decayed teeth rising from stagnant ponds, creatures with mildewed fur and scales whom the meanest roadside zoo would have rejected–and hoped the antidepressants would kick in soon.

“Wet leaves stuck to the spinning wagon wheels like feathers to a freshly tarred heretic, reminding those who watched them of the endless movement of the leafy earth-or so they would have, if only those fifteenth-century onlookers had believed that the earth actually rotated, which they didn’t, which is why it was heretical to say that it did-and which is the reason why the wagon held a freshly tarred heretic in the first place.”

[dropzone]

I am disappointed that this contest has deteriorated into honoring shaggy dog stories and recall the halcyon days of yesteryear, when English teachers submitted their students’ worst writing, including purple prose, run-on sentences, and stumbled attempts at humor, with the difference between those submissions and the current ones being their seriousness, innocence, and lack of self-consciousness because the writers were not writing for a contest but for a grade; the current breed, because of its regretable grasping at the quick laugh, produces sentences that are linear, short, and concise, unlike those of Bulwer-Lytton, and which contain far too few commas and semicolons, which I recognize is because the writers do not understand the true beauty of Bulwer-Lytton’s writing, nor have they suckled at the teat of Victorian prose, but simply wish to have the short-lived honor of having their names in the paper; though that dragon sentence is close to the goal because a reader loses track of where the sentence is going long before it gets there; ah! had the writer been able to keep that sentence going for a full page he might have something.

[Askia]

I may enter this contest one year. Here’s a longish sci-fi entry submitted for your perusal. Feel free to comment.

Tenaciously clinging to the dwindling appeal of Yellow and Red and desperate to recapture their marketshare after the regrettable disclosure of the “special ingredients” of their most popular brand, the Soylent Corporation first tried re-marketing it to an understandably wary public via a series of colorfully euphemistic new trade names, including Swamp Pine, Moneygreen, Yellow with Savory Blueberry and Green Tea, (all of which were as popular as the flavor offered by upstart rival brand, Planktofu, Inc: Puquegreene – though in all honesty, not as healthy) culminating in the completely disasterous Soupçon of Verdant before flavor biochemists panickly offered such dubious offerings as Black, Fuzzy Grey and a combination of violet mixed with turpentine dubbed Turple; but, alas, after decades dominating the fickle market of bio-engineered ocean-harvested lichen plated foods, the Soylent Corporation was undone, and unceremoniously sold “as is” to the United Parcel Service, who promised speedy delivery of the entire Soylent Rainbow food line including a secret, new and not at all suspicious foodstuff under the scatalogical motto, “What can Brown do for you?” whose cheesy aroma and *cafe au lait * coloring was faintly reminscent of warm soft stool.

[jweb]

I kinda liked this entry from 2004

Her pendulous breasts swung first to the left, then to the right and finally in independent directions, much like semaphore signals, and although he couldn’t understand semaphore, Kyle was sure they were saying, “Never ride the Tilt-A-Whirl with your grandma.”

[Walloon]

I wonder how many people entering this contest, or reading about it, have ever read more than one sentence of Bulwer-Lytton’s writings. He wrote an excellent story of the supernatural, The Haunted and the Haunters (1859) that was Lovecraftian long before H.P. Lovecraft was born. Highly recommended.

[Derleth]

These are directly from my system’s fortune files:

The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, ‘Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you’ll feel my steel through your last meal!’
– Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.

I still think that quote at odd moments, though I have yet to actually use it. I really, really want to.

Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek, shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood; she was a woman driven – fueled by a single accelerant – and she needed a man, a man who wouldn’t shift from his views, a man to steer her along the right road: a man like Alf Romeo.
– Rachel Sheeley, winner

The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never see her little dog Pritzi again.
– Claudia Fields, runner-up

It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain – perhaps a tumor or a metabolic deficiency – but after a thorough neurological exam it was determined that Byron was simply a jerk.
– Jeff Jahnke, runner-up

Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. The contest is named after the author of the immortal lines: “It was a dark and stormy night.” The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the worst possible novel.

And, finally, the origin of all this madness:

@Lord Bulwer-Lytton

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.