Peter Lobner
You’ll find the home page for this fascinating literary contest at the following link:
For a quick background, I’ve excerpted the following description from this website:
“Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. The contest (hereafter referred to as the BLFC) was the brainchild (or Rosemary’s baby) of Professor Scott Rice, whose graduate school excavations unearthed the source of the line “It was a dark and stormy night.”
“Conceived to honor the memory of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton and to encourage unpublished authors who do not have the time to actually write entire books, the contest challenges entrants to compose bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Bulwer was selected as patron of the competition because he opened his novel “Paul Clifford” (1830) with the immortal words, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Lytton’s sentence actually parodied the line and went on to make a real sentence of it, but he did originate the line “The pen is mightier than the sword,” and the expression “the great unwashed.” His best known work, one on the book shelves of many of our great-grandparents, is “The Last Days of Pompeii” (1834), an historical novel that has been adapted for film multiple times.”
Here are the basic rules, which are described in more detail on the above website:
- Each entry must consist of a single sentence but you may submit as many entries as you wish.
- Sentences may be of any length but we strongly recommend that entries not go beyond 50 or 60 words.
- Entries must be “original” (as it were) and previously unpublished.
Judges select an overall winner and runner-up, as well as winners and “dishonorable mentions” in the following categories:
- Adventure
- Children’s literature
- Crime / detective
- Fantasy
- Historical
- Horror
- Purple prose
- Romance
- Science fiction
- Vile puns
- Miscellaneous
Of course, the contest wouldn’t be complete without the Grand Panjandrum’s Special Award.
2016 Winners:
Here’s the direct link to the 2016 contest winners:
https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/copy-of-2018-winners-1
The overall winner was William “Barry” Brockett from Tallahassee, FL, whose winning entry was the following:
“Even from the hall, the overpowering stench told me the dingy caramel glow in his office would be from a ten-thousand-cigarette layer of nicotine baked on a naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire in the center of a likely cracked and water-stained ceiling, but I was broke, he was cheap, and I had to find her.”
I’m sure you’ll enjoy the other 2016 winners and the “dishonorable mentions.” But don’t stop there. The Bulwer-Lytton archives back to 1999 are available on their website. Unfortunately (or maybe, fortunately) earlier contest results appear to have been lost. The contest organizers remarked:
“At some point in time, we may come across them on a sheaf of forgotten parchment, a roll of dead papyrus, or more likely, a dusty floppy disk. If and when that happy day arrives, we shall post that information on this site post haste. Until then, we share your pain at their absence.”
The website explains how to submit your own entries for the next competition in 2017. Start now and “compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.” The judges may love it, and you’ll earn some minor bragging rights for your creative writing skills. Your English teacher would be so proud!
Update 24 September 2016:
Lyncean speaker Dave Zobel won the BLFC Grand Prize in 2004 with the following entry:
“She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight … summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp’s tail … though the term “love affair” now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism … not unlike “sand vein,” which is after all an intestine, not a vein … and that tarry substance inside certainly isn’t sand … and that brought her back to Ramon.”
Dave’s September 2015 talk was entitled, “The Science of TV’s ‘The Big Bang Theory’: Explanations Even Penny Would Understand.”
Update 4 October 2018:
You’ll also find winning entries since 2016 listed under the “Winning Entries” tab on the Bulwer-Lytton website.