2024 Bulwer-Lytton winners announced

August 19, 2024 6:26 PM

The contest to write the worst opening lines to non-existent novels have been announced. The grand prize winner is Lawrence Person of Austin, TX: "She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck."
posted by AlSweigart (25 comments total)

"Mrs. Higgins’ body was found in the pantry, bludgeoned with a potato ricer and lying atop a fifty-pound sack of Yukon golds, her favorite for making gnocchi, though some people consider them too moist for this purpose."
posted by Gorgik at 6:33 PM on August 19 [16 favorites]

"only slept with his sister once, but boy did it come back to bite him in the ass" is making me wish I did twee cross-stitch
posted by phooky at 6:44 PM on August 19 [24 favorites]

Don't tempt me, I have other projects right now.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:49 PM on August 19 [4 favorites]

Vera Windrush, ever the romantic, looked at the sea foam washed up on the shore, and imagined the life of some giant, seafaring marshmallow
posted by HearHere at 7:01 PM on August 19 [3 favorites]

A five pound ham-hock???
posted by mollweide at 7:12 PM on August 19

"... her pimento-less olive-green eyes ..."
posted by Kabanos at 7:12 PM on August 19 [3 favorites]

I wish to read more of Taco, Cat Detective. 🔍 🐱
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 7:20 PM on August 19 [14 favorites]

If you took the potato ricer line, put it in quotes, and added “, explained Dirk Gently”, then I would believe it as the opening line to a lost Douglas Adams novel.
posted by jedicus at 7:22 PM on August 19 [8 favorites]

The potato ricer author lives just a few miles from me, apparently. I'm looking sideways at everybody at the farmer's market from here on out.
posted by mollweide at 7:28 PM on August 19 [14 favorites]

The frozen chocolate chip cookie dough one should have won Romance!
posted by allegedly at 7:30 PM on August 19 [4 favorites]

That grand prize winner makes me think this contest is just an elaborate way of coming up with new dialogue for more Police Squad! episodes.
posted by Ickster at 8:06 PM on August 19 [8 favorites]

These are all GOLD. I would absolutely read further. I just got the box set of Douglas Adams for my kid and ended up rereading them at random for two hours because every other page was a deranged gentle insanity.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:49 PM on August 19 [7 favorites]

One of my all-time favorites dates back to 2008: "The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil."
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:35 PM on August 19 [8 favorites]

Mod note: [btw, this dark and stormy post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:23 AM on August 20 [4 favorites]

2024 Little-Lytton winners are also up.
The winner:

He slammed the door in my face, loud and sharp, like an acoustic lemon.

posted by cheshyre at 5:34 AM on August 20 [8 favorites]

I mean...I'm pretty sure I want to read the rest of that potato ricer murder mystery.
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:54 AM on August 20

How do we get more Police Squad made?
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 6:02 AM on August 20 [4 favorites]

son, when you’re a Marine, rank is what you smell, not what you pull.

I searched for this because it sounds exactly like what a Marine would say.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:22 AM on August 20 [2 favorites]

How do we get more Police Squad made?

I highly recommend Angie Tribeca for a modern Police Squad take.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:53 AM on August 20 [4 favorites]

I was not aware "the Rough and Ready Nursing Home" was an option. Looking forward to my older years.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:25 AM on August 20

The winning sentence immediately reminded me of this one from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash:

"His fist strikes the middle of the Crip's face like a frozen ham shot out of a cannon."

(I love that through the power of fiction a human I will never know, was able to make the phrase, "like a frozen ham shot out of a canon," rattle around in my brain for 30 years.)
posted by pickles_have_souls at 11:12 AM on August 20 [1 favorite]

"The irony is that while these people lie around like the dead, those in the air will actually die and end up like the ratatouille these people ate at the canteens which are responding to strong demand at the moment here."
posted by Acey at 12:24 PM on August 20

oh! somehow I never read the actual inspiration/namesake for the contest. It makes my editor brain want to chop it up into shorter sentences to improve it. I kinda like "rattling along the housetops"?

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.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford

posted by spamandkimchi at 12:55 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]

I need to sit down some time this winter and go all-out on this. I've been Dishonorably Mentioned twice in the increasingly-distant past, but it's time to roll up my sleeves, sprain my worldview and win a category next year.
posted by delfin at 2:58 PM on August 20 [12 favorites]

We are all pulling for you, delfin.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:50 AM on August 21 [1 favorite]