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nobody on earth is funnier than the winners of the bulwer-lytton fiction contest

highlights from the 2018 winners include:

“Eli Jacob Crowley, the famed pioneer figure who spearheaded America’s westward expansion by blazing the Crowley Trail in 1838, was an awe-inspiring figure of a man, as stout as a four-century-old oak, as intellectually complex as the fronds of a Florida palm, as singularly focused as the trunk of a Giant Sequoia, though in all other respects, not like a tree at all.” (John Hardi)

“Talila Norpiros, heir to the elven throne and commander of her people’s armed forces, chose a slightly more risqué outfit that morning than she would normally wear to battle, theorizing that if she were presented as a sex symbol as well as a dynamic protagonist, the series might attract a few more male readers and finally make the New York Times bestseller list.” (Bridget Parmenter)

“It wasn’t fair to call Michael a scum-sucking monster from the deep, the miserable, fetid descendant of some unnamed demon who, after centuries at the very depths of the ocean, had somehow surfaced and found his way to Wall Street—it was accurate, of course, but he preferred Michael.” (Allison Bryski)

and my personal favourite:

“Once upon a time, there was a place where things happened; allow me to be more specific.” (John Wallace)

just fucking remembered contest again so nobody asked but here are some 2019 winner highlights

“It was a dark and stormy night, and since this was Miami in July and everyone had left their convertible tops down, the rain fell in Cadillacs.” (Andrew Lundberg)

“When the tall dark, handsome, buff, and wealthy cowboy moseyed into my
“Blazin’ Six-guns” novelty shop, I felt a wave of heat flood through me, as if I had accidentally swallowed my sub-lingual nicotinic acid lozenge, causing the niacin to be released instantaneously, rather than in a more controlled, extended, low-potency dose, for which means the prescription had been written.” (Randall Card)

“Zajaxian Planetary Law required that war, if it must be fought, be fought not with bombs, bullets and blood, as on our own primitive Earth, but with serried banks of immensely powerful mainframe computers, even though they were bulky to carry and unwieldy to throw.“ (Jeremy Das)

“The High Gondonderil gazed on with horror as the Elgaborian legions marched
at a single, pitiless pace into the once peaceful streets of Sar-Andrada, the capital city of the kingdom of Xanthil, located in a fantasy universe which might seem extremely confusing at present but which will doubtless make perfect sense to you, dear reader, once you realize that, like most fantasy universes, it’s basically just Tolkien’s Middle-earth with different names for things.” (Harrison Glaze)

would you look at that its time to talk about my favourite bad fiction contest!! here are some 2020 winner highlights

“The first thing I noticed about the detective’s office was how much it reminded me of the baggage claim at a nearby airport: the carpet was half a century out of date, it reeked of cigarettes and cheap booze, and I was moderately certain that my case had been lost.”
(Paul Kollas)

“’You may know my true name,’ gloated Archmage-Emperor !Gfńatt’ Bdúnśṽiobfhńr
to the foolish traitor who had dared try to end his glorious mage-empire’s reign, ‘but can you pronounce it?’”

(Gideon Gordon)

“The sound of his raspy voice and the feel of his chilly hand on her shoulder made her shudder, like the wooden things on the sides of windows, but a verb rather than a noun, and with two d’s rather than two t’s.” (Kagte Minyard)

“Jarrod, lying in the bed next to Selina, on his side with his head in his hand, asked, ‘What would your husband do if he saw me right now?’ and Selina, who was watching her husband sneak up on Jarrod holding a tire iron with two hands raised above his head, replied, ‘Probably sneak up on you with a tire iron raised above his head, preparing to use it for something other than its intended purpose.’” (Randy Blanton)

it’s 2021 winner time and i want to be clear this time that “bad fiction” is not a judgment on my part, it’s the whole goal of the contest. the about page says, “…the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels.” i’m not insulting them. anyway here are my faves <3

“It was a dark and stormy … morning, Gotcha! – this is just the
first of innumerable twists and turns that you, dear Reader, will
struggle to keep abreast of as I unfold my tale of adventure as second
plumber aboard the hapless SS Hotdog during that fateful summer of 1974.”

(Louise Taylor)

“Our story begins in the cozy cottage of Bynnoldh-Dyr, son of
Asgwitch-Torgwyr, in the idyllic elven village of Myrthffolwrd, but our
book actually begins some two hundred pages earlier, in which you are
pummeled by irrelevant history and unpronounceable names, because my
publisher is paying me by the word.” (Neil B Harrison)

“As the dawn begin to break, Debby and Robert, their arms tightly wrapped
around each other, watched in awe as the sky turned a brilliant pinkish
red as the sun’s rays inched their way down the slopes of the craggy
peaks of the Rocky Mountains, but this was Canada so the rays were
centimetering their way down the slopes.” (Daniel Leyde)

“She had a deep, throaty laugh, like the sound a dog makes right before it throws up.” (Janie Doohan)

These are absolutely not, by any means, bad.

One of my personal faves

“Little Timmy suffered from Claustraphobia: the fear of being trapped in a closet with Santa Claus.”

Do consider submitting something; there’s no entry fee, no prize (sans bragging rights) and you can submit as many times as you want.

https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/submit

my one complaint about this contest is that in recent years every opening line has been a fucking banger and i very much do want to read the rest of the novel.