Wisconsin professor wins 2011 bad writing contest.

[Freakzilla]

by Associated Press, on Tue Jul 26, 2011 11:30am PDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A sentence in which tiny birds and the English language are both slaughtered took top honors Monday in an annual bad writing contest.

Sue Fondrie of Oshkosh, Wis., won the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for her sentence comparing forgotten memories to dead sparrows, said San Jose State University Prof. Scott Rice. The contestant asks writers to submit the worst possible opening sentences to imaginary novels.

Fondrie wrote: "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."

The University of Wisconsin professor's 26-word sentence is the shortest grand prize winner in the contest's 29-year history, Rice said.

Contest judges liked that Fondrie's entry reminded them of the 1960s hit song "The Windmills of Your Mind," which Rice described as an image that "made no more sense then than it does now."

The contest is named after British author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" begins with the oft-quoted opening line "It was a dark and stormy night."

The contest solicits entries in a variety of categories. John Doble of New York won in the historical fiction category:

"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."

To take the prize for best purple prose, Mike Pedersen of North Berwick, Maine, relied on a thesaurus'-worth of synonyms:

"As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire sky dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt seas that deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at the horizon, Ian was at a loss as to why he felt blue."

___

Online:

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest: http:// bulwer-lytton.com/

Next year we should enter some of KJA's writing.

[Serkanner]

He will finally win a contest.

[Omphalos]

That last sentence certainly sounds like something he'd write.

[SadisticCynic]

That last sentence certainly sounds like something he'd write.

I was gonna say the same thing - adjectives galore!

[Ampoliros]

I don't think he'd qualify, since its his natural writing.

Now of course if we asked him to write a sentence for the 'Best' Writing Evar Contest then submitted it, he'd win top honors.

[SandChigger]

I love that contest.

(I think I've got a collection or two of winning and also-ran entries around here somewhere... )

[SandRider]

The contestant asks writers to submit the worst possible opening sentences to imaginary novels.

I'll assume the AP writer meant "contest", but whutevah .....


awright, then .... here's how this could go down ....

everybody scour tehKJA's hackings, findings some choice sentence that would fit the criteria of being an "opening sentence";
piss-poor quality and laughably bad examples should not be at all difficult to locate; in fact, the fun would be the "random
open page, point finger" approach ....

after determining the submission procedures, if each entry must be separately submitted, how many submissions per Identity, etc,
knitting appropriate sock-puppets and so forth, we simply bombard this contest with tehKJA-originated quotes, ensuring a "win"
by sheer numbers ...

after one of us has won, it can be revealed that the "quote" was actually a tehKJA sentence (approved & published by TOR)
and that the award should rightfully be presented to tehKJA ...

[Freakzilla]

Now we're getting somewhere...

[Omphalos]

Isn't KJA from Wisconsin too?

[A Thing of Eternity]

I wonder if we could get in shit for submitting KJA's stuff, because man would that ever be amazing if we sent in some of his work and it won!

[Freakzilla]

I wonder if we could get in shit for submitting KJA's stuff, because man would that ever be amazing if we sent in some of his work and it won!

What's the worst that could happen, plagiarism?

[Lawliet]

I wonder if we could get in shit for submitting KJA's stuff, because man would that ever be amazing if we sent in some of his work and it won!

Let's do it! I'm already excited.

[D Pope]

I wonder if we could get in shit for submitting KJA's stuff, because man would that ever be amazing if we sent in some of his work and it won!

What's the worst that could happen, plagiarism?

Why would it need to be submitted under an assumed name?

[SandRider]

no, I'm saying every body submit a sentence from Keith in their name or a sockpuppet or what-ever ....
when one of us wins, which with deck-stacking and sock-puppet-knitting is a mathematical certainty,
the true author can be revealed ...

[D Pope]

That works, sorry about being slow to catch on.

[E. LeGuille]

This contest won't work unless it's an Ultra-contest.

[SandRider]

That works, sorry about being slow to catch on.

absolutely fine, my communications are often in need of clarification ...

if General Ewell would've asked General Lee just exactly what he meant by "if practicable",
the Army of Northern Virginia would've been on "the High Ground" on the morning of the Second Day
of the engagement at Gettysburg, and burning Washington, D.C. to the ground by September ....

[merkin muffley]

That works, sorry about being slow to catch on.

absolutely fine, my communications are often in need of clarification ...

if General Ewell would've asked General Lee just exactly what he meant by "if practicable",
the Army of Northern Virginia would've been on "the High Ground" on the morning of the Second Day
of the engagement at Gettysburg, and burning Washington, D.C. to the ground by September ....

It was obviously practicable. Ewell pussied out.

[Freakzilla]

That works, sorry about being slow to catch on.

absolutely fine, my communications are often in need of clarification ...

if General Ewell would've asked General Lee just exactly what he meant by "if practicable",
the Army of Northern Virginia would've been on "the High Ground" on the morning of the Second Day
of the engagement at Gettysburg, and burning Washington, D.C. to the ground by September ....

It was obviously practicable. Ewell pussied out.

Yup.

[SandRider]

I don't know that I'd go that far .... altho that was essentially Genrl Hood's opinion ... albeit in a little different language ....


course now, a year & half later, after losing a leg and use of an arm and being daily dosed with enough opiates to make
Sherlock Holmes nervous, (not to mention getting dumped by the little teen-aged girl in Savannah) Genrl Hood did order
a frontal assault over three miles of open ground against semi-fortified works and a shitload of artillery @ Franklin ....