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Jeffrey L. Jones, editor
jjones@fayette.k12.ky.us
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OK, so this isn't exactly technology humor, but it is funny
nonetheless! (Thanks to Bryan Station High School media specialist Tom
Buchanan, for graciously keeping me up to date on this silliness!)
 The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is not your ordinary
contest. Remember those silly novel beginnings, dutifully typed out by
the Peanuts character Snoopy? Well, they were based on a real author's
real first paragraph...
"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..." --Edward
George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)
The main difference between the participants in the
contest which bears his name, and Mr. Bulwer-Lytton himself, is that the former intend to be
silly, that is, they write purposefully bad novel first
paragraphs...paragraphs so heavy with metaphorical weightiness that
they threaten to topple from the page, cascading from it into a rubble pile
like so many broken literary headstones....OK, so you get the picture!
The contest rules read..."The goal of the contest is childishly
simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to
imaginary novels..." Below are a few of
the literary disasters from the official website (http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/).
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David Zobel, winner of the W-L for 2004 |
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.
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 Runner-Up:
The notion that they would no longer be a couple dashed Helen's
hopes and scrambled her thoughts not unlike the time her sleeve caught
the edge of the open egg carton and the contents hit the floor like
fragile things hitting cold tiles, more pitiable because they were the
expensive organic brown eggs from free-range chickens, and one of them
clearly had double yolks entwined in one sac just the way Helen and
Richard used to be.
Pamela Patchet Hamilton |
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Grand Panjandrum's Special Award: She sipped her latte
gracefully, unaware of the milk foam droplets building on her mustache,
which was not the peachy-fine baby fuzz that Nordic girls might have,
but a really dense, dark, hirsute lip-lining row of fur common to
southern Mediterranean ladies nearing menopause, and winked at the
obviously charmed Spaniard at the next table.
Jeanne Villa |
 Winner:
Children's Literature Jack planted the magic beans and in one
night a giant beanstalk grew all the way from the earth up to the
clouds--which sounds like a lie, but it can be done with genetic
engineering, and although a few people are against eating
gene-engineered foods like those beans it's a high-paying career to
think about for when you grow up.
Frances Grimble |
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Winner: Detective Detective Micky Blarke arrived on the scene
at 2:14 am, and gave his cigarette such a severe pull that rookie Paul
Simmons swore the insides of the detective's cheeks touched, but the
judge indicated that that amount of detail was not necessary in his
testimony, and instructed the jury to disregard that statement.
Joe Polvino |
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