Alfred nervously smoothed his perspiration-soaked mullet over his shoulders, ran his tongue over his tobacco-stained upper tooth, scratched a crusty hunk of oatmeal from his wispy mustache, pulled his “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Reach My Beer” T-shirt over his belly, and somehow found the courage to say, “So, do you come here often?”
This sentence, written 20 years ago, was one of my failed early attempts to win recognition in the international Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, in which San Jose State University for decades recognized the most skillful writers of terrible prose.
Specifically, its originators challenged participants to produce the first sentence of the worst possible novel, in the tradition of Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton and this immortal opening line of his novel “Paul Clifford”:
“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.”
When I finally broke through a decade later with a victory in the Western category and then a Dishonorable Mention in Fantasy & Horror, I knew I had reached the pinnacle of my meager literary career.
Alas, the real Bulwer-Lytton competition closed its doors last year. But for the 15th time — not annually, since our first was in 2006 — I’ve decided to continue my tribute to their efforts by asking local writers and others from around the country to put themselves at the mercy of my not particularly distinguished panel of judges.
As I already knew as a result of routinely seeing Lehigh Valleyites represented in the lists of real Bulwer-Lytton winners, our area has a talented core of skillfully bad writers, and they’ve submitted some wonderful entries to my local contest. But I’ve also enjoyed seeing how many newcomers have emerged as winners and place winners here, including our 2012 winner, then-77-year-old Luther Crest resident Helen Wernlund.
When I asked her afterward about her inspiration, she replied: “I have no idea. I just wanted to write something stupid.”
A good tip for you beginners.
I should note that while our local contest has had nowhere near the international reach of the real contest, I got a surprise the other day when I googled “Bill White Morning Call Bulwer-Lytton” — and found my byline in the Khaleej Times (“Voice of the UAE since 1978”) with a severely truncated version of one of my long-ago Bulwer-Lytton columns, headlined “The Art of Bad Writing,” and reproducing a few random paragraphs, including:
“FOR SKILLFUL [their caps] bad writers, there is no greater honour [note the British spelling] than to be a place winner in San Jose State University’s Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which invites people from all over the world to submit the opening sentence to the worst possible novel.”
There also was a paragraph of my mild criticism of the judges’ choices and … “The Lehigh Valley area is a hotbed for terrible writers. Spare me your wisecracks about me and The Morning Call. Fact is, I received a lot of really good entries from many very enthusiastic bad writers of all ages. This may turn out to be the Bad Writing Capital of the World.”
As a retired columnist, I’m old news in the Lehigh Valley, but I may very well be a household name in the United Arab Emirates.
Anyway, since this is the only column I’ll devote specifically to this contest until we get to the results in a couple of months, I’ll offer a sample and some basic instructions, starting with a warning I issue every year:
This is not a competition to write the longest, most convoluted possible sentence. When I’m judging our entries, I’m looking for creative subject matter, odd imagery and some kind of humorous twist. Some of my favorites — and many of the winners in the real Bulwer-Lytton contest — have been very short.
To enter, just email me your sentences over the next several weeks. You may enter as often as you like, but remember that entries must be one sentence, not a whole paragraph.
If you want to know what a winner looks like, I encourage you to Google my name, Morning Call and Bulwer-Lytton for columns where I announced our winners. Better yet, go to bulwer-lytton.com and check out decades worth of their winners.
For now, here is a winning San Jose entry from 2006, our local contest’s first year. Written by Bill Mac Iver of Berkeley, California, it won the Purple Prose category:
A single sparkling tear fell from Little Mary’s cheek onto the sidewalk, then slid into the storm drain, there to join in its course the mighty waters of the Los Angeles River and, eventually, Long Beach Harbor, with its state-of-the-art container-freight processing facilities.
Now it’s your turn to write something stupid. Good luck.
This is a contributed opinion column. Bill White can be reached at whitebil1974@gmail.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author(s), and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. For more details on commentaries, read our guide to guest opinions at mcall.com/opinion.