Bad Novel Beginnings: BLFC

We have another winner in the world's premier bad writing contest:

Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.

And the winner of 2004 is Dave Zobel who submitted the following:

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.

The ellipses must have clinched it, I'm thinking.

The rest of the honorable mentions and runners up and winners in various categories are all well worth reading. There's so much terrific badness there I can't imagine how the judges choose the winner every year.

Posted July 20, 2004 06:35 AM | ai books