Best of the Worst

This is a joyful annual task: announcing the winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Inspired by English novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who is infamous for having come up with the much-ridiculed opening line, “It was a dark and stormy night,” this lighthearted competition invites writers and aspiring humorists to create the worst opening sentences for books that (thank goodness) will never be completed. The contest has been held ever since 1982 and is sponsored by the English Department at California’s San Jose State University. As newspaperman-blogger Dave Knadler once characterized it, the Bulwer-Lytton challenge is “a sobering reminder on the perils of handling dashes and subordinate clauses without parental supervision.” Well phrased, indeed.

Top honors this year go to David McKenzie, described as “a 55-year-old Quality Systems consultant and writer from Federal Way, Washington.” His groan-producing parody reads:

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May,” a sturdy whaler captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin’ and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.

However, there are also winners in several individual categories. From the “Detective” division comes this bit of egregious overwriting, produced by Eric Rice of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin:

She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida--the pink ones, not the white ones--except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn’t wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren’t.

Actually, though, I think I prefer the runner-up pick in that category, submitted by Los Angeles resident Tony Alfieri:

The dame sauntered silently into Rocco’s office, but she didn’t need to speak; the blood-soaked gown hugging her ample curves said it all: “I am a shipping heiress whose second husband was just murdered by Albanian assassins trying to blackmail me for my rare opal collection,” or maybe, “Do you know a good dry cleaner?”

And then there are several delightful “dishonorable mentions” (the best kind, in this competition), including this criminal misuse of clichés submitted by Lynn Lamousin of Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

Darnell knew he was getting hung out to dry when the D.A. made him come clean by airing other people’s dirty laundry; the plea deal was a new wrinkle and there were still issues to iron out, but he hoped it would all come out in the wash--otherwise he had folded like a cheap suit for nothing.

You’ll find all of this year’s winners and runners-up here.