[lit-ideas] Bad Writing Contest 2004
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 22:33:27 -0700
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
2004 Results
http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2004.htm
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 Zobel
Manhattan Beach, CA
A 42-year-old software developer and former National Spelling Bee contestant
is the winner of the 2004 edition of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Dave
Zobel of Manhattan Beach, California, won with his timely entry.
An international literary parody contest, the competition honors the memory
(if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl
Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple:
entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels.
Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been
made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is
mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the
almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with
the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years,
"It was a dark and stormy night."
Runner-Up:
The notion that they would no longer be a couple dashed Helen's hopes and
scrambled her thoughts not unlike the time her sleeve caught the edge of the
open egg carton and the contents hit the floor like fragile things hitting
cold tiles, more pitiable because they were the expensive organic brown eggs
from free-range chickens, and one of them clearly had double yolks entwined
in one sac just the way Helen and Richard used to be.
Pamela Patchet Hamilton
Beaconsfield, Quebec
Canada
Grand Panjandrum's Special Award
She sipped her latte gracefully, unaware of the milk foam droplets building on
her mustache,
which was not the peachy-fine baby fuzz that Nordic girls might have, but a
really dense,
dark, hirsute lip-lining row of fur common to southern Mediterranean ladies
nearing
menopause, and winked at the obviously charmed Spaniard at the next table.
Jeanne Villa
Novato, CA
Winner: Adventure Category
The legend about Padre Castillo's gold being buried deep in the Blackwolf Hills
had lain
untold for centuries and will continue to do so for this story is not about
hidden treasure,
nor is it set in any mountainous terrain whatsoever.
Siew-Fong Yiap
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Runner-Up
Lord Tarlington gazed upon the crazed Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls of
the ancient
tomb of the petrified pharaoh, he vowed there would be no curse on him like on
that other
Lord, unless you count his marriage to Lady Tarlington who, when the lost
treasure was
found, will be dumped faster than that basket in the bulrushes.
Melissa Rhodes
Cherry Valley, CA
Winner: Children's Literature
Jack planted the magic beans and in one night a giant beanstalk grew all the
way from the
earth up to the clouds--which sounds like a lie, but it can be done with genetic
engineering, and although a few people are against eating gene-engineered foods
like those
beans it's a high-paying career to think about for when you grow up.
Frances Grimble
San Francisco, CA
Runner-Up
When Cinderella saw that the Prince had sent the Duke to find the woman of his
dreams, like
some rich schoolboy who pays the smartest kid in the class to do his homework,
or worse,
like someone who has been on welfare so long that he has trouble doing any kind
of work, she
suddenly realized the spoiled nature of the King's son and stealthily slid the
slipper back
into her pocket.
Milton Combs
Kingston, WA
Dishonorable Mention
As he entered the room within which so many a wild night of their sweltering
love affair had
been spent, the White Rabbit regarded her with benevolent eyes, her posture
such that he
suspected something was wrong, but before he could speak Alice unburied her
face from her
trembling hands and between her intense sobs he made out the words, "I'm late .
. . I'm
late."
Cory Gano
Camas, WA
Winner: Dark and Stormy Night
It was a stark and dormy night--the kind of Friday night in the dorm where
wistful
women/girls without dates ovulated pointlessly and dreamed of steamy sex with
bad boy/men in
the backseat of a Corvette--like the one on Route 66, only a different color,
though the
color was hard to determine because the TV show was in black and white--if only
Corvettes
had back seats.
David Kay
Lake Charles, LA
More at http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2004.htm
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