Don’t write like this!
Time once again for the annual award for bad writing, otherwise known as the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. This year’s winners are:
Grand Prize Winner
“Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.”
Sue Fondrie
Oshkosh, WI
Winner: Adventure
“From the limbs of ancient live oaks moccasins hung like fat black sausages — which are sometimes called boudin noir, black pudding or blood pudding, though why anyone would refer to a sausage as pudding is hard to understand and it is even more difficult to divine why a person would knowingly eat something made from dried blood in the first place — but be that as it may, our tale is of voodoo and foul murder, not disgusting food.”
Jack Barry
Shelby, NC
Winner: Crime
“Wearily approaching the murder scene of Jeannie and Quentin Rose and needing to determine if this was the handiwork of the Scented Strangler — who had a twisted affinity for spraying his victims with his signature raspberry cologne — or that of a copycat, burnt-out insomniac detective Sonny Kirkland was sure of one thing: he’d have to stop and smell the Roses.”
Mark Wisnewski
Flanders, NJ
Winner: Historical Fiction
“Napoleon’s ship tossed and turned as the emperor, listening while his generals squabbled as they always did, splashed the tepid waters in his bathtub.”
John Doble
New York City
Winner: Romance
“As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand — who would take her away from all this — and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.”
Ali Kawashima
Greensboro, NC
Winner: Sci Fi
“Morgan ‘Bamboo’ Barnes, Star Pilot of the Galaxia (flagship of the Solar Brigade), accepted an hors d’oeuvre from the triangular-shaped platter offered to him from the Princess Qwillia — lavender-skinned she was and busty, with two of her four eyes what Barnes called ‘bedroom eyes’ — and marveled at how on her planet, Chlamydia-5, these snacks were called ‘Hi-Dee-Hoes’ but on Earth they were simply called Ritz Crackers with Velveeta.”
Greg Homer
Placerville, CA
Winner: Vile Puns
“Detective Kodiak plucked a single hair from the bearskin rug and at once understood the grisly nature of the crime: it had been a ferocious act, a real honey, the sort of thing that could polarize a community, so he padded quietly out the back to avoid a cub reporter waiting in the den.”
Joe Wyatt
Amarillo, TX
Winner: Western
“The laser-blue eyes of the lone horseman tracked the slowly lengthening lariat of a Laredo dawn as it snaked its way through Dead Man’s Pass into the valley below and snared the still sleeping town’s tiny church steeple in a noose of light with the oh-so-familiar glow of a Dodge City virgin’s last maiden blush.”
Graham Thomas
St. Albans, Hertfordshire, U.K.
For the entire list of this year’s winners, runner ups, and ‘dishonerable’ mentions, go here.
HT to Atlanta for sending me the link.