The Bulwer-Lytton Contest of Entmoot

[Beruthiel's cat]

A writer friend of mine forwarded the winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton competition, which is sponsored by the English department at San Diego State University in California. The object of the competition is to write the first sentence (and it can be only one sentence) to a really bad novel, as did Bulwer-Lytton with his legendary "It was a dark and stormy night."

I thought it would be rather fun to use this premise as a writing exercise (as well as an excercise in humor and imagination) on the Writer's Forum.

I include the winners of the competition, just to illustrate what needs to be done and to get those creative juices flowing!!!

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Bulwer-Lytton Competition Top 10

10) "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it."

9) "Just beyond the Narrows, the river widens."

8) "With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned, unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description."

7) "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept
along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.'"

6) "Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was about to give his body and soul to a back alley sex-change surgeon to become the woman he loved."

5) "Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from eeking out a living at a local pet store."

4) "Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do."

3) "Like an overripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor."

2) "Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'; a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies."

AND THE WINNER IS.....

1) "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You lied!"
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And now I challenge all you Moot-writers to have a go at writing a really bad opening sentence!!! You know you'd never be able to get away with this in class!