Farewell to a Fiction Contest

This past week saw the end of the famous (or infamous) Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. For those who aren’t familiar with this prestigious contest, it was started back in 1982 by professor Scott E. Rice at San Jose State University in California. 

The premise of the endeavor is to challenge writers to write bad fiction, specifically opening sentences. It was inspired by little-known Victorian Era fiction writer Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. I call him little-known, but the opening to his novel, The Last Days of Pompeii, may be familiar to you:

“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.”

He was also famously plagiarized by Snoopy in the Peanuts comic strip.

The BLBWC has thrived over the decades and has produced some horrendous and hilarious opening lines. It’s been featured in major media outlets and has spawned several published collections of the best of the worst. Or worst of the best. 

Here are a few samples (with credit to the authors):

From 2001 – 

The graphic crime-scene photo that stared up at Homicide Inspector Chuck Venturi from the center of his desk was not a pretty picture, though it could have been, Chuck mused, had it only been shot in soft focus with a shutter speed of 1/125 second at f 5.6 or so.

Ms. Rephah Berg, Oakland, CA

From 2010 – 

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, WA

From 2021 – 

A lecherous sunrise flaunted itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder with its rapacious fingers of gold, thus exposing her dusky bosom to the dawn’s ogling stare.

Stu Duval, Auckland, New Zealand

It’s sad to see the end to something that was fun, challenging, and poked a little fun at writers who take their work a little too seriously. I’m grateful to the professor for his tireless work in keeping the contest going for so long and for challenging writers to do something they hate to do…write badly. 

RB