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Bulwer-Lytton '02: We Honor Crap So You Don't Have To
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By Paul Shrug, Section News
Posted on Tue Jul 16th, 2002 at 09:02:44 PM PDT
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The winners of the 2002 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, an annual competition for intentionally bad writing, have just been announced. The object is to write the worst possible opening paragraph for a piece of fiction, in several categories. An Oakland copy editor won the top prize for using similes involving both roller-coasters and toilet paper rolls to describe a failed relationship.
Hey, that's not so bad! Over here we'd give it Diary of the Week!
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| My personal favorite, for reasons I can't explain, was the "winner" of the Western category -- from a Canadian, no less:
Doc Parker looked down as Sheriff Eddie LaDuke lay desperately gasping his final breaths in the dusty sun-baked Arizona desert, knowing there was little he could do as the outlaw's bullet had shredded Eddie's internal organs like fresh coleslaw, leaving Doc to ponder his next move equipped only with his pistol, some chewing tobacco, and now, one extra horse.
The Bulwer-Lytton contest, run every year by San Jose State University, is named after the guy who first wrote the phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night," later immortalized by Snoopy from Peanuts.
Something we can all aspire to. |
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