And the writing contest winner is …
By Herb Drill
In a former life, I was assistant financial news editor for the Evening Bulletin in Philadelphia. There, among other things, I wrote a twice-weekly column on marketing, advertising, and public relations and drew upon my journalism education and marketing degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Years later, I was a feature writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Over the years, I’ve always freelanced for magazines and now the Internet.
Since I’ve earned a living – sometimes a pretty good one – as a writer, I have difficulty understanding why I can’t get my books published.
After reading the results of the latest Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Writing Contest, maybe my lack of fiction fortune reflects the fact that I’m not “Boris Bad Enough” (you remember that cartoon character, don’t you?).
Anyway, my dear friend and fellow writer GC (he’s Southern, y’all) Skipper sent a missive from Tuscaloosa, AL with year’s results. They reinforced my belief that I could be a whole lot worse as a writer.
Let’s start with the namesake’s 1830 effort in something entitled Paul Clifford. Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton began: "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."
You can see why the annual Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest highlights (or low lights?) who can write the worst opening lines of a novel. It’s pretty amusing stuff sometimes - especially for anyone who has written for a living (they call writing a living?).
Anyway,8ulwer-Lytton is an international literary parody contest in which the competition honors the memory - if not the reputation - of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) and the phrase, "the pen is mightier than the sword,"
Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford with the immortal words which the "Peanuts" cartoon character beagle “Snoopy” plagiarized for years: "It was a dark and stormy night."
The contest began in 1982 as a quiet affair run by the English Dept of San Jose State University, with only three submissions. That response was deemed a “thunderous success” by academic (Piled High and Deep) standards, and the contest went public (shutter at the thought) the following year. Since then, it has attracted thousands of annual entries from all over the world.
Since you can’t wait any longer, here are the 10 “winners” of the latest Bulwer-Lytton contest, for which one writes only the first line of a bad novel”
10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it."
9) "Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens."
8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."
7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep’."
6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."
5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her
from eking out a living at a local pet store."
4) "Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do."
3) "Like an over-ripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor."
2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies."
And Ta-dum, the “Winner” was...
1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the ravaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder,
gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You lied!’ “
I read that stuff and then review some of my stuff and I feel better immediately. Never mind your snide remarks!