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They just announced this year's winner of the bulwer-lytton bad fiction writing contest. The premise, derived from the opening line of one of Bulwer-Lytton's novels ("It was a dark and stormy night..."), is to write the worst opening line for a (theoretical) work of fiction. This year's winning line was:
quote:Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
Here are some past winners (WARNING: May contain offensive metaphors).
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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MAY contain offensive metaphors? Who you kidding? Of course they do! They're also funny! Well, most of them, anyway...
Personally, I've been following the Bulwer-Lytton contest since 1984 when my English teacher gave me, as a prize in some contest or something, a copy of the book The Son of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night."
My favorite entry in that book was something that went a little like this:
"There's more than one way to skin a cat," said Matilda as she pinned the paws to the dissecting board.
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I first heard about it in my Freshman writing class at BYU (that would be 1995). The professor read a few entries, then circulated the book, allowing students to read aloud entries they found particularly funny. It being BYU, there were a few that were too off-color to share (I remember a particularly evocative one regarding an overripe eggplant), but it was a very fun class period nonetheless.
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: I think we should have a hatrack Bulwer-Lytton contest.
That was my intention in creating this thread. I'd love to see entries from (among others) Tante, Chris or Scott. I'd love to kick it off, but I'm afraid I lack the necessary skillz. I mean, what if what I write isn't bad enough? I'd be so embarassed.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
*grin* That reminds me of an assignment in one of my undergrad English classes – the assignment was to write a really bad poem. Some of the students, assuming that the next assignment would be to edit it into a good poem, turned in stuff they thought wasn’t really that bad, so the next assignment would be less work (I know this because they said so, before the teacher arrived). The teacher collected them, shuffled the papers, and passed them out, assigning us to edit someone else’s really bad poem into a good poem. And present them to the class the next week. The people who turned in poems they thought were pretty good ended up getting their feelings hurt by other people’s edits. Fortunately the person whose poem I got turned in atrociously over-the-top bad poetry, so she enjoyed my effort and we got to have fun and laugh about trying to use the same language and/or imagery to come up with something less overblown and pretentious. And I had done the same, so I could enjoy what the guy who got mine did with it. It was much fun.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Here's my preliminary entry to the HBL (Hatrack Bullwer-Lytton contest):
quote:Her cheap plastic sunglasses turned up to points at the corners, just like her cheap plastic smile, except where her glasses were black her smile was a vivid red, like the blood of the roadkill she’d left smashed to the asphalt behind her as her cherry-colored Corvette careened out of the cheap plastic town where she’d spent the first 21 years of her life.
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"OK, I'll bite," she whispered, smiling as she ripped the collar off his crisp white shirt, pure as his soul was until she sank her fangs into the soft succulent flesh of his neck, devouring the rich, viscous blood that spurted into her waiting mouth, making him into the beast she has already become.
Posts: 1319 | Registered: Jul 2005
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The phase echoed and haunted, tickling the corners of my mind like a French maid feather-dusting the credenza. It seemed as familiar as last night's leftover meatloaf, yet as difficult to pin down as a well-lubricated Greco-Roman wrestler. I knew I had heard it before, but where? "Do? It doesn't do anything. That's the beauty of it."
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: The phase echoed and haunted, tickling the corners of my mind like a French maid feather-dusting the credenza. It seemed as familiar as last night's leftover meatloaf, yet as difficult to pin down as a well-lubricated Greco-Roman wrestler. I knew I had heard it before, but where? "Do? It doesn't do anything. That's the beauty of it."
As usual, Tante, you just made my night. " ... a well-lubircated Greco-Roman wrestler ...". Where do you come up with this stuff?
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<-- I just pulled it out from under my hat.
