Smiles
August 18th, 2008, 00:56
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is held each year to celebrate the worst examples of convoluted, pretentious, obtuse and just-plain-lousy writing. We have on this Board a number who could easily win a 1st or 2nd place at the B.L.F.C. but I'll resist the temptation start fishing in that pond.
The contest asks that would-be writers send in their best/worst efforts to forge a memorable opening sentence for a novel yet-to-be-written. The worst example wins the prize od $250.
The 1st place award this year went to this contribution:
"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped 'Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.'"
Other good ones:
"'Toads of glory, slugs of joy,' sang Groin the dwarf as he trotted jovially down the path before a great dragon ate him because the author knew that this story was a train wreck after he typed the first few words."
"Like a mechanic who forgets to wipe his hands on a shop rag and then goes home, hugs his wife, and gets a grease stain on her favorite sweaterтАФlove touches you, and marks you forever."
"Special agent Mark Park's strong chin and firm mouth showed that he was a man to be reckoned with, while his twinkling blue eyes revealed surprising depths of kindness and humor, the scar on his cheek a past filled with violence and danger, and his left ear a fondness for M&Ms, but only the red ones."
"Leopold looked up at the arrow piercing the skin of the dirigible with a sort of wondrous dismayтАФthe wheezy shriek was just the sort of sound he always imagined a baby moose being beaten with a pair of accordions might make."
"'Hmm...' thought Abigail as she gazed languidly from the veranda past the bright white patio to the cerulean sea beyond, where dolphins played and seagulls sang, where splashing surf sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells, where great gray whales bellowed and the sunlight sparkled off the myriad of sequins on the flyfish's bow ties, 'time to get my meds checked.'"
My favourite:
"Mike Hummer had been a private detective so long he could remember Preparation A, his hair reminded everyone of a rat who'd bitten into an electrical cord, but he could still run faster than greased owl snot when he was on a bad guy's trail, and they said his friskings were a lot like getting a vasectomy at Sears."
Cheers ...
The contest asks that would-be writers send in their best/worst efforts to forge a memorable opening sentence for a novel yet-to-be-written. The worst example wins the prize od $250.
The 1st place award this year went to this contribution:
"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped 'Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.'"
Other good ones:
"'Toads of glory, slugs of joy,' sang Groin the dwarf as he trotted jovially down the path before a great dragon ate him because the author knew that this story was a train wreck after he typed the first few words."
"Like a mechanic who forgets to wipe his hands on a shop rag and then goes home, hugs his wife, and gets a grease stain on her favorite sweaterтАФlove touches you, and marks you forever."
"Special agent Mark Park's strong chin and firm mouth showed that he was a man to be reckoned with, while his twinkling blue eyes revealed surprising depths of kindness and humor, the scar on his cheek a past filled with violence and danger, and his left ear a fondness for M&Ms, but only the red ones."
"Leopold looked up at the arrow piercing the skin of the dirigible with a sort of wondrous dismayтАФthe wheezy shriek was just the sort of sound he always imagined a baby moose being beaten with a pair of accordions might make."
"'Hmm...' thought Abigail as she gazed languidly from the veranda past the bright white patio to the cerulean sea beyond, where dolphins played and seagulls sang, where splashing surf sounded like the tintinnabulation of a thousand tiny bells, where great gray whales bellowed and the sunlight sparkled off the myriad of sequins on the flyfish's bow ties, 'time to get my meds checked.'"
My favourite:
"Mike Hummer had been a private detective so long he could remember Preparation A, his hair reminded everyone of a rat who'd bitten into an electrical cord, but he could still run faster than greased owl snot when he was on a bad guy's trail, and they said his friskings were a lot like getting a vasectomy at Sears."
Cheers ...