Bulwer-Lytton Contest: Best Bad Writers

Another spin around the planet, another batch of winners from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest who promise to stretch the boundaries of the English language in ways it should never be stretched, like an elephant in Spandex. Wisconsin represents again with Adam McDonough of Reedsburgh (southwest of the Dells, northwest of Baraboo), but here are my favorites:

She Wasn't Wearing Pink Memorial Award: "His chest glistened like a pumpkin seed, either one fresh out of the pumpkin but with all the orange strands of pumpkin flesh removed, or one straight out of the oven after being coated in just the right amount of oil and then baked; the point is that it was smooth, fairly shiny, and that color." --Jesse Kolman

Worst Image: "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

Best Reversal: "Leaning back comfortably in a plush old chair, feet up, fingers laced behind his head, Tom Chambers inventoried his life and with a satisfied grin mused, 'Ah, marlin fishing off the coast of Majorca, a bronze star for that rescue mission in Jamir, the unmatched fragrance of pastries fresh out of the oven at Café Legrande, two sons who would make any father proud . . . I’ve never done any of that.'" --Ernie Santilli

Read about my take on last year's here and an interview with a previous Bulwer-Lytton winner.

The Best Bad Writer Ever: An Interview With 2009 Bulwer-Lytton Winner Eric Rice

You loved his sentence about a lady who looked a little like a bird. Now, in an exclusive WORMBOOK interview, detective category champ Eric Rice talks about bad writing and good reading.

How did you first hear about and decide to enter the Bulwer-Lytton contest?
I first heard about the Bulwer-Lytton contest a few years ago. I didn't specifically decide to enter it at the time, but I thought it would be fun to try to come up with some entries. It wasn't until this year that I actually actively tried to think of some opening lines that would be worth entering.

What does it take to write a truly bad sentence? How is the process different from writing a regular sentence?
I think that to write a really bad sentence, you first have to know what makes a sentence good. Not rules, but guidelines about what makes a sentence flow well, what makes it sound effortless instead of awkward, etc. Then deliberately make all those mistakes. What I really like about the sentence I wrote is all the interruptions and irrelevant clauses that completely mess up the pace of the sentence. Several people have told me that their favorite part is that I emphasize that the birds are pink a couple of times, and then state that "she wasn't wearing pink."

I think the biggest difference between writing a good sentence and writing a bad sentence is the amount of laughing you do when no one is around.

Being as vague as you have to, what is your non-writing-contest-winning occupation?
I pay the bills by cooking and baking.

You won the detective category; would you describe yourself as a fan of detective fiction? If not, what do you like to read?
I'm somewhat a fan of some detective fiction. I lean more towards the thriller side of mystery fiction, especially if there's a serial killer involved. I also love science fiction, horror, psychological thrillers, anything funny, parodies. The list is very long. I've whittled my library down to just over a thousand paperbacks, and about three hundred hardcovers. It used to be larger.

What kind of writing do you do when not attempting to craft the worst sentence possible?
I'm very new to trying to write fiction myself, so I don't know if I've really settled on a style or voice yet. The few stories I'm currently working on are all science fiction/fantasy. That's probably what I have the most experience reading, so it's easiest to fall into that sort of style. I'd like to try to come up with a noir detective parody, sort of Douglas Adams meets Mike Hammer. I think that would be fun.

Thanks Eric! We feel inspired.

"She wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't"

From commenter Elizabeth: The Washington Post quotes from the winners of this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel. (Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote "It was a dark and stormy night" for the opening to his very real novel PAUL CLIFFORD.) Read all the winners and dishonorable mentions, including implied atrocities against ham and a "royal spittle reader," here.

My favorite teacher in elementary school once assigned us to write stories based on the pictures and one-line captions in Chris van Allsburg's THE MYSTERIES OF HARRIS BURDICK; could not a high school teacher struggling with what to do in the last few days of the term ask students to write the rest of the story from these groaners?

(Title from the detective winner with this noir roarer: "She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't." - Eric Rice, Sun Prairie, WI)