I’m unsure of how many people are explicitly aware of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, but the general idea is people submit introductory one-liner sentences that are meant to be written as poorly as possible, with awards given to the best worst submissions in any year.
I’ve linked to the winner’s catalogue. Any particular blurbs stand out to you? Any examples from your own work?
Some examples:
2012 winner
As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting.
2003 winner
They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white … Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn’t taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.
2016 Adventure Dishonorable Mention
The sea roiled like water in a pasta pot about to boil, an apt simile thought Captain Samuel Turner, because if they didn’t fix their engine soon he and his crew would be floating face down like overcooked manicotti—bloated, white, limp and about to be consumed by something that wished it were eating ahi tuna instead.
These are actually hilarious, and I could see them actually being in a comedy novel inspired by Pratchett or Adams.
Seems like it’s actually less of the “worst opener” and more like “hilariously off kilter opener that is a run on sentence”.
I suppose that’s because if it is written poorly enough to truly be the "worst opener " it wouldn’t be selected as a finalist.
Yeap!
Crafting a subjectively terrible one-liner in a good way requires a good amount of experience. It’s not enough to just cobble words together to have something that’s “objectively” bad writing, but it requires putting together some really disparate ideas together into something that, for the most part, would absolutely not fly in most settings, but are absolutely hilarious in the right one.
The 2012 winner for example is a viscerally disgusting image, but it reveals so much about the character involved (and the narrator, if they aren’t the same person).
