"When the time came for Timothy to fly the nest, he felt the best years of his life were ahead of him, if only because he had spent the childhood ones living in a nest."
Great news for English geeks: The 2003 winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced. The contest is named after mediocre British writer Charles Bulwer-Lytton, who actually coined the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night" in his novel Paul Clifford. Appropriately, "the goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels." The worst wins.
I've been keeping up with this contest since senior year of high school. I had nothing better to do then and apparently things have not improved. But it's a rare bit of writing that can make me laugh aloud, as the sentence below did:
"She fumbled for her laser gun, knowing that the alien was eager to ravage her, unlike Captain Johnson, who wanted to take things slow since he was coming off the heels of a very painful divorce."
Posted by mesh at July 17, 2003 01:36 PM | TrackBackI don't think I could write something that bad if I tried.
Posted by: Christin at July 17, 2003 04:28 PMI could. In fact, I think I have.
Posted by: k.mesh at July 18, 2003 08:18 AMWhat are you guys talkin' about? That's fantastic.
Posted by: ron at July 18, 2003 09:39 AMHere is my attempt:
"June watched as the blood flowed across his face, down the tub, and over the rim of the drain, like a long exclamation point emphasizing her loss."
Good/bad, eh?
Posted by: Krista at July 22, 2003 01:33 AMQuite bad. An excellent candidate for the 2004 competition.
Posted by: k.mesh at July 22, 2003 02:03 AMPainful divorce, that's priceless. Quite funny!
Posted by: Shannon at July 23, 2003 01:26 PM