Has anyone else heard about this? The English Department at San Jose State University started this contest in 1983. The point is to compose the opening sentence of the worst possible novel never written.
The name is taken from Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, an infamous author of purple prose responsible for The Last Days of Pompeii, Reinzi, and Paul Clifford. It’s in the last book that his infamous first sentence is found:
“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.”
Snoopy, of course, always began his writings with “It was a dark and stormy night”. So did Madeleine L’Engle in A Wrinkle In Time.
Anyone want to try there hand here? You can also submit your entries at www.bulwer-lytton.com.
The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarous 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.”
The Bulwer-Lytton Writing Contest! I have one of the “best ofs”. Pretty funny stuff. I considered using a couple of them as sig lines at one point, maybe I’ll do that next.
An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.
I grabbed the 1984 winner for my own. Doesn’t anyone want to give it a try? Come on, guys . . .
The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarous 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.”
It was two minutes past one. So this is how it is, this is how it always happens in the two minutes past one. Fiddlesticks your two minutes past one. With my last 50 lira I purchased some true and honest cold creamed clams; I took a pull from the bottle. It was good. It burned my mouth and felt good and warm going down my esophagus and into my stomach. From there it went to my kidneys and my bladder, and was good. I remembered then when I last saw the Marquis de Sade who was still a damn fine writer. It was in Dachau and we looked out the windows at the underground cavern and drank cold creamed clams in the two minutes past one. It was two minutes past one and had been two minutes past one for some time.
She wasn’t really my type, a hard-looking but untalented reporter from the local cat box liner, but the first second that the third-rate representative of the fourth estate cracked open a new fifth of old Scotch, my sixth sense said seventh heaven was as close as an eighth note from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, so, nervous as a tenth grader drowning in eleventh-hour cramming for a physics exam, I swept her into my longing arms, and, humming “The Twelfth of Never,” I got lucky on Friday the thirteenth.
–Wm. W. “Buddy” Ocheltree
IKE, you’re killing me! A THOUSAND thank yous for the link – I haven’t laughed so hard in weeks. I’m STILL laughing, and I’m e-mailing it to all my semi-literate friends.
Umm, I’ve actually entered this contest. They send you a nice acknowledgment of your ‘excreble prose’. It’s a lot of fun, but harder than some would imagine to come up with good bad prose. Although I did not win, I’ll let you know if I wind up in the next compilation.