The 2015 winners of the annual award for the worst opening sentence of an unpublished (or unpublishable) bad novel were announced today. The award memorializes Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night."

This year's grand prize winner came from Dr. Joel Phillips of West Trenton, NJ:

Seeing how the victim's body, or what remained of it, was wedged between the grill of the Peterbilt 389 and the bumper of the 2008 Cadillac Escalade EXT, officer "Dirk" Dirksen wondered why reporters always used the phrase "sandwiched" to describe such a scene since there was nothing appetizing about it, but still, he thought, they might have a point because some of this would probably end up on the front of his shirt.

There are many other "winners" on the web site for various other awards. Here's the "Dishonorable Mention" award for Adventure:

A thousand miles from the coast a cheer went up from the burned, ragged survivors of the Cortez party as they descended upon the hapless prairie dog devouring skin, fur, blood, everything in their ravenous quest for sustenance since their expulsion, two months previously, from the Reno Holiday Inn without the concomitant expulsion from the safe of their wallets and passports.

And, the prize winner for "Children's Literature:"

The doctors all agreed the inside of Charlie’s intestinal tract looked like some dark, dank subway system in a decaying inner city, blackened polyps hanging from every corner like tiny ticking terrorist time bombs, waiting to burst forth in cancerous activity; however, to Timmy the Tapeworm this was home.

And, the "Dishonorable Mention" for Fantasy:

“My name is Vangir," the stout dwarf announced, "son of Valdir, son of Tolfdir, son of Torsson, heir to the dwarf kingdom of Darag-Vur, King of the Under-Folk, ring-giver, dragon-slayer, M.D., DDS."

And, finally, a link to the entire list. Open at your own peril....

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2015win.html

MD and DDS!

Great!

In the absence of "stars" and comments, Archive writers can at least take comfort in knowing that their creations didn't make the cut.

Sandi

JesusA (imported) wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2015 6:22 pm The 2015 winners of the annual award for the worst opening sentence of an unpublished (or unpublishable) bad novel were announced today. The award memorializes Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night."

I've always had a problem with the vilification of that particular passage from Bulwer-Lytton because for those who remember what it is like outside after dark without streetlights everywhere, there is a great difference between the night of a full moon and a new moon; the latter is indeed in comparison to the former a dark night, so the phrase is not an unnecessary pleonasm, and its concision is certainly preferable to such an abomination of syntax and euphony as "One evening of late summer before the nineteenth century had reached one third of its close, a man and woman were walking along the Highbury Road," the author of which won a Nobel prize for literature. And the prose of Isak Dinesen (real name Karen Blixen, played, I believe, by Meryl Streep in Out of Africa), another Nobel laureate for literature, is just as clotted and unreadable in Danish as it is in the soporific English translations. The prose of Across the River and into the Elms is painful to read; no wonder he put a bullet through his head.

A slight re-write to eliminate two periods and you would really be on to something!

JesusA (imported) wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2015 6:22 pm And, the "Dishonorable Mention" for Fantasy:

[INDENT]“My name is Vangir," the stout dwarf announced, "son of Valdir, son of Tolfdir, son of Torsson, heir to the dwarf kingdom of Darag-Vur, King of the Under-Folk, ring-giver, dragon-slayer, M.D., DDS."

Thank God this wasn't the doctor who did my penectomy.

--LT

"Timmy the Tapeworm" That's going to have me laughing for days.

I want to read Timmy!

"It was a dark and stormy colon. Suddenly a fart rang out. A sphincter slammed, the maid screamed, and a pirate ship appeared on the horizon." FLUSH...