Bragging Rights for Florid Prose

Has it really been 17 years now since I began recording the annual winners of the whimsical Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest? It just goes to show much entertainment I derive from that labor. As you’ll recall, this competition has been sponsored since 1982 by the English Department at California’s San Jose State University, and applauds particularly awful opening sentences to (fortunately) never-to-be-completed books. How can you not love such an erudite endeavor?

According to the contest’s home page, there were 5,000 entries this year, in 12 categories. The Grand Prize winner was Aurora, Colorado’s John Farmer, who submitted a most appetizing lead-in:

I knew she was trouble the second she walked into my 24-hour deli, laundromat, and detective agency, and after dropping a load of unmentionables in one of the heavy-duty machines (a mistake that would soon turn deadly) she turned to me, asking for two things: find her missing husband and make her a salami on rye with spicy mustard, breaking into tears when I told her I couldn’t help—I was fresh out of salami.

Since this is a mystery-fiction blog, let’s move right along to the Crime & Detective section. Top-most honors here go to Jim Anderson of Flushing, Michigan, for the following nostalgic bit:

The detectives wore booties, body suits, hair nets, masks and gloves and longed for the good old days when they could poke a corpse with the toes of their wingtips if they damn well felt like it.

However, I’m more fond of Brunswick, Maine, resident Doug Self’s entry, which scored Dishonorable Mention honors:

As detective Harry Bolton knelt down looking at the fifth murdered prostitute in as many weeks, he thought his was a cold cruel city and that maybe he should have taken that job in rural North Carolina but he didn’t think he could be like sheriff Andy Taylor all in black and white, plus he couldn’t stand Aunt Bea’s falsetto voice, and who names their kid Opie anyway, he had to know it rhymed with dopey, you might as well just call him dipstick, that doesn’t rhyme with much.

Another personal favorite is this one from John Shafer of Tonbridge, Kent, UK, who also picked up a Dishonorable Mention, but in the Adventure category:

It was only when the booming voice of the Sergeant-at-Arms rang out declaiming the surprising order for each and every member of the firing squad to shoot the Sergeant-at-Arms himself and then turn their rifles on each other, an order assiduously followed by the well-trained soldiers, that the cigarette-smoking, blindfolded Gerry Corker truly appreciated the seemingly endless hours his mother had denied him on the baseball field during his lonely childhood, instead sending him every afternoon to Crazy Barney’s School of Mimicry and Ventriloquism.

Before I dissolve again in laughter, let me point you to the Web page where you can find all of this year’s victors and runners-up.

If you’re interested, the deadline for submissions to next year’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is June 30, 2023.