Virgil

If you have never heard of it, the contest is a hilarious parody. The objective is to write the worst opening of a novel in imitation of an actual 19th century English novelist, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. It was Bulwer-Lytton who wrote this opening:

"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."

I guess I’ve read worse, but that is so melodramatic (rain in torrents except when “checked by violent gusts of wind”) and ridiculous (flame struggling against darkness) and elementary apparent (when is a night not dark—duh?) that it’s worth going down in history as a touchstone for atrocious prose. It’s so bad that a contest exists in his honor. From Wikipedia:

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) is a tongue-in-cheek contest that takes place annually and is sponsored by the English Department of San Jose State University in San Jose, California. Entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" – that is, deliberately bad. According to the official rules, the prize for winning the contest is "a pittance" or $250.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulwer%...iction_Contest

So this year’s results have come out and it’s worth a blog. You can read them all here:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011.htm.


Here are some of my favorites. I really liked the runner-up in the Crime category:

Five minutes before his scheduled execution, Kip found his thoughts turning to his childhood-- all those years ago before he had become a contract killer whose secret weakness was a severe peanut allergy, even back before he lost half of a toe in a gardening accident while doing community service-- but especially to Corinne, the pretty girl down the street whom he might have ended up marrying one day if she had only shown him a little more damn respect.
-Andrew Baker, Highland Park, NJ

The winner of the Fantasy category:

Within the smoking ruins of Keister Castle, Princess Gwendolyn stared in horror at the limp form of the loyal Centaur who died defending her very honor; “You may force me to wed,” she cried at the leering and victorious Goblin King, “but you’ll never be half the man he was.”
-Terri Daniel, Seattle, WA

The runner-up in Historical Fiction had a particularly nostaligic outlook:

The executioner sneered as the young queen ascended the stairs to the guillotine; in the old days, he thought, at least there was some buildup, a little time on the rack or some disemboweling, but nowadays everyone wants instant gratification.
-Andrea Rossi, Wilmington, NC

This was only a “dishonorable mention” for Purple Prose, but it shows you what an extended simile can do:

Deep into that particular wet Saturday night ugly blues screamed out from the old man's horn like a hooker being hauled down a flight of stairs, regular thick loud thumps punctuated by nasty and erratic sharp barks.
-John Benson, Carthage, MO

The winner of the Vile Puns category:

Detective Kodiak plucked a single hair from the bearskin rug and at once understood the grisly nature of the crime: it had been a ferocious act, a real honey, the sort of thing that could polarize a community, so he padded quietly out the back to avoid a cub reporter waiting in the den.
-Joe Wyatt, Amarillo, TX

And finally my favorite was the winner of the Romance category:

As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand—who would take her away from all this—and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.
-Ali Kawashima, Greensboro, NC

I guess you have to be a male barbarian like me to really laugh over that one. I didn’t even highlight the winner, which was pretty good. Go over and read them all if you want to bring a smile to your face.

Before concluding, a side note. I had an engineering colleague who on a project we were both on wrote a test report with the opening line “it was a hot and windy day.” If you read enough engineering reports, you would know how an off note that rings. I kidded him mercilessly over it. He was trying to make a point that the weather at the test influenced the results, but technical writing doesn’t lead to such statements, especially right at the beginning of the report. If there had been a technical report category to the Bulwer-Lytton, he would have won.