The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
bulwer-lytton.com
bulwer-lytton.com
• "My encounter with the Genie didn't turn out half bad," thought Lance as he sat down at the tiny piano to rehearse for his new job with the circus.
• David Ben MacGoldstein was considered cheap even by the other Scottish Jews.
• Dave's theory that placing a metal plate in the microwave oven would shunt away the dangerous radiation, thus making it safe to dry the cat, proved to be wrong, although the experiment was not a total loss, for Dave was at least able to prove that Fluffy did NOT have nine lives.
• As he had done every evening for the past ten years, Bert poured himself a shot of whisky, and sat down to reflect on that strange twist of fate that led him, once the most respected student at Harvard Medical School, to become a veterinary proctologist.
• In the race for the "Best Serial Killer, 1991" award, Jeffrey Dahmer was eating up the competition.
• "Up, up, and away!" cried Bean Boy, America's newest Superhero, leaping toward the sky, as his unique method of propulsion ensured that the uncounscious criminals would remain that way until the police arrived.
• In the race for the "Best Serial Killer, 1991" award, Jeffrey Dahmer was eating up the competition.
To me, starting a story (or movie) in the middle a giant fight scene, and then jumping "12 hours earlier" is the contemporary equivalent lazy opening. It just means you're not trying, you're relying on convention to create drama.
"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."^[0]
Sample some mass-market Victorian fiction, and you'll find a lot of openers like that one. The style is anachronistic today, though it survives in some genres, and it has its famous practitioners. (George R.R. Martin is about as purple as they come.)
Charles Shculz, the creator of the Peanuts comic, regularly poked fun at Bulwer-Lytton's "It was a dark and stormy night..." until it became a running joke. Since Peanuts was published for nearly 50 years, the joke was well known.
The Bulwer-Lytton writing contest started quite a long time ago (80's) at San Jose State University, but I remember it was originally called a "Bad Writing Contest." Some support for my failing meatware memory can be found here:
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/about.html
The only fashion that never goes out of style is poking fun at past fashions.
I don't understand. Maybe because I've only used Mutt for 20 years. Is it a joke?
"Finally, in keeping with the gravitas, high seriousness, and general bignitude of the contest, the grand prize winner will receive … a pittance."