Bulwer-Lytton Contest Winners
March 1st, 2002
These are the 10 winners of this year’s Bulwer-Lytton contest, wherein one
writes only the first line of a bad novel. (Victorian author Edward
George Bulwer-Lytton is famous–or is it infamous–for writing the novel
that began “It was a dark and stormy night.”)
in the sound chamber he would never hear the end of it.
unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep
azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied
for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that
defied description.
along the east wall: Andre creep… Andre creep… Andre creep.
was about to give his body and soul to a back-alley sex-change surgeon
to become the woman he loved.
eking out a living at a local pet store.
often do.
corpulent remains of Santa Claus lay dead on the hotel floor.
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.
AND THE WINNER IS…
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!