Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is an annual tongue-in-cheek contest, sponsored by the English Department of San Jose State University in San Jose, California. Entrants are invited “to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.”
Edward Bulwer-Lytton was an English playwright and novelist who had a knack for coining memorable phrases. He wrote, for example, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” “the almighty dollar,” and “the great unwashed.” He may be best remembered however for the first sentence of his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford, which begins, “It was a dark and stormy night…” which inspired the contest which bears his name.
There is no category for nautical fiction in the contest, but several winning entries this year have a nautical theme:
Winner: Historical Fiction – John Doble, New York City
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.
Runner up: Adventure – Mike Mayfield, Austin, TX
Sensing somehow a scudding lay in the offing, Skipper Bob tallied his tasks: reef the mains’l, mizzen, and jib, strike and brail the fores’l, mizzen stays’l and baggywrinkles, bowse the halyards, mainsheets, jacklines and vangs, turtle and belay fast the small cock, flemish the taffrail warps, batten the booby hatch, lay by his sou’wester, and find the bailing bucket.
Winner: Purple Prose – Mike Pedersen, North Berwick, ME
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.
The overall winner this year was not in any respects nautical but is worthy of admiration nevertheless:
Grand Prize Winner: Sue Fondrie, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
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.