Outside the Beltway

Bad Writing Contest

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss -- a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

James Joyner · Wednesday, June 30, 2010 · 2 comments

The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which honors particularly bad opening sentences, has concluded. Recall that the prize is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his 1830 novel Paul Clifford thusly:

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.

This year’s winner is a Molly Ringle of Seattle for this gem:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.

The runner-up was Tom Wallace of Columbia, SC for:

Through the verdant plains of North Umbria walked Waylon Ogglethorpe and, as he walked, the clouds whispered his name, the birds of the air sang his praises, and the beasts of the fields from smallest to greatest said, “There goes the most noble among men” — in other words, a typical stroll for a schizophrenic ventriloquist with delusions of grandeur.

Nice. Recall that Bulwer-Lytton was trying to write well and the contestants here are intentionally trying to do the opposite.

via IHE