I have been seriously remiss. Too much time has passed since I last reported on the winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for pretentious writing.
The BLFC, sponsored since 1982 by San Jose State University, is a bad writing contest. It is inspired by the purple prose of Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1872).
How purple? This is the opening sentence of Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel “Paul Clifford”:
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.
Awesome.
The contest challenges the writing public to compose their own equally bombastic opening sentence of an imaginary novel. Each year, entries pour in by the thousands. Here are some of the recent winners.
2010
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.
— Molly Ringle, Seattle, Washington
RUNNER-UP, PURPLE PROSE AWARD
The wind whispering through the pine trees and the sun reflecting off the surface of Lake Tahoe like a scattering of diamonds was an idyllic setting, while to the south the same sun struggled to penetrate a sky choked with farm dust and car exhaust over Bakersfield, a town spread over the lower San Joaquin Valley like a brown stain on a wino’s trousers, which is where, unfortunately, this story takes place.
— Dennis Doberneck, Paso Robles, California
DISHONORABLE MENTION
— Elaine was a big woman, and in her tiny Smart car, stakeouts were always hard for her, especially in the August sun where the humidity made her massive thighs, under her lightweight cotton dress, stick together like two walruses in heat.
— Derek Renfro, Ringgold, Georgia
DISHONORABLE MENTION
As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveling her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.
— Judy Fischer, Prospect, Kentucky
2011
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.
— Sue Fondrie, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
WINNER, WESTERN CATEGORY
The laser-blue eyes of the lone horseman tracked the slowly lengthening lariat of a Laredo dawn as it snaked its way through Dead Man’s Pass into the valley below and snared the still-sleeping town’s tiny church steeple in a noose of light with the oh-so-familiar glow of a Dodge City virgin’s last maiden blush.
— Graham Thomas, St. Albans, U.K.
DISHONORABLE MENTION
She gazed smolderingly at the mysterious rider, his body cloaked in enough shining black leather to outfit an Italian furniture store, wrapped so tightly each muscle stood out like a flamboyant Mexican hairdresser at an Alabamian monster truck rally; and he met her gaze with an intensity that couldn’t have been matched by even a starving junkyard dog in the meat aisle of a suburban supermarket.
— Chris Kemp, Annapolis, Maryland
DISHONORABLE MENTION
Day broke upon the Baroness von Hestach with the pitiable insistence of all that she despised — a gray and unattractive intrusion into her sumptuous bedchamber, much like the Baron.
— Holly Kohler, Concord, Massachusetts
2012
WINNER, HISTORICAL FICTION CATEGORY
The “clunk” of the guillotine blade’s release reminded Marie Antoinette, quite briefly, of the sound of the wooden leg of her favorite manservant as he not-quite-silently crossed the polished floors of Versailles to bring her another tray of petit fours.
— Leslie Craven, Hataitai, New Zealand
WINNER, ADVENTURE CATEGORY
The stifling atmosphere inside the Pink Dolphin Bar in the upper Amazon Basin carried barely enough oxygen for a man to survive — humid and thick the air was, and full of little flying bugs, making the simple act of breathing like trying to suck hot Campbell’s Bean with Bacon Soup through a paper straw.
— Greg Homer, Placerville, California
WINNER, CRIME CATEGORY
She slinked through my door wearing a dress that looked like it had been painted on… not with good paint, like Behr or Sherwin-Williams, but with that watered-down stuff that bubbles up right away if you don’t prime the surface before you slap it on, and — just like that cheap paint — the dress needed two more coats to cover her.
— Sue Fondrie, Appleton, Wisconsin
DISHONORABLE MENTION
Ronald left this world as he entered it: on a frigid winter night, amid frantic screams and blood-soaked linens, while relatives stood nearby and muttered furious promises to find and punish the man responsible.
— Rebecca Oas, Atlanta, Georgia
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The awesomeness continues in my next post.
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