The Bad Writing contest...
Some of there are, er, quite amusing...
The Edward Bulwar-Lytton prize is awarded every year to the author of the worst possible opening line of a book. This has been so successful that Penguin now publishes five books' worth of entries.
"As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in
the sound chamber he would never hear the end of it"
"Just beyond the Narrows the river widens"
"With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned,
unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep
azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth, nose,
Marilee had a beauty that defied description"
"Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along
the east wall: "Andre creep ... Andre creep ... Andre creep"
"Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was
about to give his body and soul to a back-alley sex-change surgeon to
become the woman he loved."
"Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from
seeking out a living at a local pet store"
"Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do"
"Like an overripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the
corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor"
"Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of
the word "fear", a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in
the eye of death - in short, a moron with suicidal
tendencies"
"The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the
greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window,
revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in
frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her,
disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You
lied!' "
4th Runner-Up: Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin
Klein's Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made
from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.
(Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy Pontzer, Sterling)
3rd Runner-Up: The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit
like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and
spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for
all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas. (Ken
Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
2nd Runner-Up: I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a
long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I
don't speak German. Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name
for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread
bags. I don't know the name for those either. (Jack Bross, Chevy
Chase)
1st Runner-Up: She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out
in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you
lose the recipe, and on top of that you can't sing worth a damn.
(Joseph Romm, Washington)
And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign: His fountain pen was
so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed the pope, turned him
upside down and started writing with the tip of his big pointy hat.
(Jeffrey Carl, Richmond)
Honorable Mentions
- He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
- The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you
fry them in hot grease. (Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)
- The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the
Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
- He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a
guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one
of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar
eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. (Joseph
Romm, Washington)
- She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used
to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the
door open again. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)
- She was sending me more mixed signals than a dyslexic third-base
coach. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
- The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield) - Having O.J.
try on the bloody glove was a stroke of genius unseen since the debut
of Goober on "Mayberry R.F.D". (John Kammer, Herndon)
- From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city
and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. (Roy Ashley,
Washington)
- Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
- Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the
center. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
- Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access
T:flw.quid55328.comaaakk/ch@ung but gets T:flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung
by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
- Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
- Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a
movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like
"Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield)
- Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across
the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one
having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other
from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. (Jennifer Hart,
Arlington)
- Upon completing kindergarten, Lance felt the same sense of
accomplishment the Unabomber feels every time he successfully blows
up another college professor. (Anonymous, no city please)
- They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)
- John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
- His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free (Chuck Smith,
Woodbridge)
- After sending in my entries for the Style Invitational, I feel
relieved and apprehensive, like a little boy who has just wet his
bed. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
- You made my day, even a day as gray as white cotton sheets washed
for decades in cold water without bleach like no self-respecting
woman who came of age in the 1940s would allow in her house, much
less on one of her beds, but up with which she must put whenever she
visits one of her own daughters, just as if they had never been
brought up right. (DEV, Madison, Wis)
The Edward Bulwar-Lytton prize is awarded every year to the author of the worst possible opening line of a book. This has been so successful that Penguin now publishes five books' worth of entries.
"As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in
the sound chamber he would never hear the end of it"
"Just beyond the Narrows the river widens"
"With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned,
unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep
azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth, nose,
Marilee had a beauty that defied description"
"Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along
the east wall: "Andre creep ... Andre creep ... Andre creep"
"Stanislaus Smedley, a man always on the cutting edge of narcissism, was
about to give his body and soul to a back-alley sex-change surgeon to
become the woman he loved."
"Although Sarah had an abnormal fear of mice, it did not keep her from
seeking out a living at a local pet store"
"Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do"
"Like an overripe beefsteak tomato rimmed with cottage cheese, the
corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor"
"Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of
the word "fear", a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in
the eye of death - in short, a moron with suicidal
tendencies"
"The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the
greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window,
revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in
frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her,
disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You
lied!' "
4th Runner-Up: Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin
Klein's Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made
from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.
(Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy Pontzer, Sterling)
3rd Runner-Up: The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit
like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and
spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for
all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas. (Ken
Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
2nd Runner-Up: I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a
long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I
don't speak German. Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name
for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread
bags. I don't know the name for those either. (Jack Bross, Chevy
Chase)
1st Runner-Up: She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out
in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you
lose the recipe, and on top of that you can't sing worth a damn.
(Joseph Romm, Washington)
And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign: His fountain pen was
so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed the pope, turned him
upside down and started writing with the tip of his big pointy hat.
(Jeffrey Carl, Richmond)
Honorable Mentions
- He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
- The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you
fry them in hot grease. (Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)
- The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the
Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
- He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a
guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one
of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country
speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar
eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. (Joseph
Romm, Washington)
- She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used
to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the
door open again. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)
- She was sending me more mixed signals than a dyslexic third-base
coach. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
- The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield) - Having O.J.
try on the bloody glove was a stroke of genius unseen since the debut
of Goober on "Mayberry R.F.D". (John Kammer, Herndon)
- From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city
and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. (Roy Ashley,
Washington)
- Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
- Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the
center. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
- Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access
T:flw.quid55328.comaaakk/ch@ung but gets T:flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung
by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
- Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
- Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a
movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like
"Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield)
- Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across
the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one
having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other
from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. (Jennifer Hart,
Arlington)
- Upon completing kindergarten, Lance felt the same sense of
accomplishment the Unabomber feels every time he successfully blows
up another college professor. (Anonymous, no city please)
- They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)
- John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
- His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free (Chuck Smith,
Woodbridge)
- After sending in my entries for the Style Invitational, I feel
relieved and apprehensive, like a little boy who has just wet his
bed. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
- You made my day, even a day as gray as white cotton sheets washed
for decades in cold water without bleach like no self-respecting
woman who came of age in the 1940s would allow in her house, much
less on one of her beds, but up with which she must put whenever she
visits one of her own daughters, just as if they had never been
brought up right. (DEV, Madison, Wis)