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Well, the results are out for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, and once again I failed to take the prize with my dazzlingly writing skills. The contest, for those who haven't yet experienced it, is for the worst opening sentence one can write for a novel. It's based on the writings of Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose immortal opening sentence for Paul Clifford was: "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." With inspiration like that, most of the entries tend toward the long, over-puncuated, mixed-metaphor style of writing, which is ridiculously fun to write.

My entries this year didn't even earn a Dishonorable Mention, but I'm rather fond of them. I thought I'd post them here, and if anyone feels like adding dreadful sentences to the post in comments, that would be fun too.

Sentence One Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful maiden who was very unhappy because it was extremely difficult to meet any handsome knights when one lives upon a time, and she rather wished her parents would move to a cul-de-sac like normal people.

Sentence Two As she went into her twelfth hour of labor, Jessica cursed the one night stand who had gotten her into this mess, the gynecologist who had convinced her to attempt natural childbirth, and most especially, her ninth grade English teacher, as Jessica was sure she would have been better able to resist Howard’s attempt at seduction if she hadn’t been mentally trying to rephrase the sentence ‘I don’t put out!’ so that it didn’t end in a preposition.