The winner of the NSG Bulwer-Lytton Competition II is....
Cannot think of a name, showing that length sometimes doesn't matter:
Cannot think of a name wrote:Gravel, it turned out, was a terrible substitute for toilet paper.
And the runner up - for the second competition in a row - is Dumb Ideologies with:
Dumb Ideologies wrote:The dream long fought for had been realised, one people, one nation, one ruler, eighty-seven genders, but one question remained - what was the correct term of address for a feminine-leaning non-binary pansexual wolfkin absolute ruler of colour?
DI, apologies if you think you were disadvantaged by having two entries in the finalists. If we ever do this again, I might make it one finalist entry per participant, just to ensure fairness - it was just so difficult to choose between your excellent entries.
Congratulations to our winner and runner-up for their fantastic new bragging rights, and many thanks to everyone for participating.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Non-Binary Participants,
For the first time in 8 long years, and in order to distract you from these turbulent times, we bring you the second NSG Bulwer-Lytton competition, shamelessly modelled on the long-running Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Here's a link to the 2012 first NSG competition.
The competition is named after the opening sentence of Victorian author Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford:
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write the worst opening sentence you can manage.
Some groundrules (several of them equally shamelessly copied from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest rules):
Each entry must consist of a single sentence; but you may submit as many entries as you wish (so one entry per forum post, please)
Sentences may be of any length but I strongly recommend that entries not go beyond 50 or 60 words
Posts commenting on other entries are welcome
The contest closes to new entries on the 8th of April
The Archregimancy will then choose a list of 10 finalists, and open up a forum poll for voting
The Archregimancy cannot be bribed, not even with kitten pictures, and his decisions are final (especially when he writes about himself in the third person)
Voting on the finalists will then run for one week, and voting will be open to everyone
There's only a single category - no subdividing by genre (the main point of difference from the real Bulwer-Lytton contest)
The winner will receive the amazing prizes of the acclamation of his/her/their peers, and NSG bragging rights
To get you in the spirit, here are the finalists from the 2012 NSG Bulwer-Lytton competition:
Now, go forth and write badly!
And yes, I know this might arguably belong in Arts & Fiction, but this was originally an NSG competition - so an NSG competition it remains.
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THE 10 FINALISTS:
Voting is now open for four days, until a bit after 16:00 Cairo time (UTC+2) on the 12th of April
Good-spirited banter about the entries is encouraged.
For the first time in 8 long years, and in order to distract you from these turbulent times, we bring you the second NSG Bulwer-Lytton competition, shamelessly modelled on the long-running Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Here's a link to the 2012 first NSG competition.
The competition is named after the opening sentence of Victorian author Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford:
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
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write the worst opening sentence you can manage.
Some groundrules (several of them equally shamelessly copied from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest rules):
Each entry must consist of a single sentence; but you may submit as many entries as you wish (so one entry per forum post, please)
Sentences may be of any length but I strongly recommend that entries not go beyond 50 or 60 words
Posts commenting on other entries are welcome
The contest closes to new entries on the 8th of April
The Archregimancy will then choose a list of 10 finalists, and open up a forum poll for voting
The Archregimancy cannot be bribed, not even with kitten pictures, and his decisions are final (especially when he writes about himself in the third person)
Voting on the finalists will then run for one week, and voting will be open to everyone
There's only a single category - no subdividing by genre (the main point of difference from the real Bulwer-Lytton contest)
The winner will receive the amazing prizes of the acclamation of his/her/their peers, and NSG bragging rights
To get you in the spirit, here are the finalists from the 2012 NSG Bulwer-Lytton competition:
The 10 finalists:
Honourable mentions:
Meowfoundland wrote:As midnight cast its long, dark, throbbing shadow over the bright lights of the City of Light, Isabelle was busy clambering her way through her next novel, much like a beaver eats a tree, but not entirely: for she had lost much of her work in the storms that had happened not one, not two but three days previously, and could not get her large, oversized teeth through the bark that was the opening chapter.
Yaltabaoth wrote:It would be a night she would never forget - not because of the giant eagles they flew upon, or the beautiful hand-wrought septum jewelry he gifted to her, or even the trained koala servants that brought them their meal - but because of the herpes.
Mindhar wrote:One day, in spring, a gentle Dwarf, who, by preference, not custom, lived alone, set out, from his cave, on an errand, to a swamp, where, unbeknownst to him, there dwelt, in squalor, a malodorous Ogre.
Nude East Ireland wrote:The turnip-coloured mountain tops loomed over the stone city as though they were a father towering over a child, but that was was ironic, for that the stones of the city had come from the mountains, making the father-son relationship between the two literal, meaning that the people were, in fact, the mountains.
Grainne Ni Malley wrote:There wasn't a superfluous amount of felicity to be found in the life of an elephant caretaker for a traveling circus, but Ramon found a minute dropping of pleasure by gazing wistfully at Edwina as she fastidiously plucked remnants of lint and crumbs from her painstakingly groomed beard.
Astrolinium wrote:Alexander cha-chaed elegantly into the bar, proceeding thus to ascend upon the tender tender's moobs and receive a swift kick to the genital regions; this ritual he oft repeated, for Azabulzugagar with not even six years having passed had come to him and ordained it in exchange for the life of his darling Holka, whose hairy mole sent tingles down his abdomen every time he became cognizant of its proximity.
Jerusalem and Damascus wrote:The luminscent hues of Princess Lagwardha's hair rippled throughout the air as she spun, shifting from pink to green to purple as she cut down the nefarious Kumwarians with her irridescent sword Hurogismir to defend the younglings.
Ariddia wrote:The morning was bright, bright as the sun which caused it to be so, shining through the shifting shimmering clouds which drifted aimlessly like lost fluffy sheep untethered in a vast open sky, contrasting sharply with the darkness of the night which had just come to a natural close as it did every morning; but as Thomas Tumblemac slept in that morning, like every morning, until early afternoon, that is not where our story begins.
Dumb Ideologies wrote:Of all the impudences, impertinences, phenomena with distinctly insolent anger-making properties, the meager saliferous unpalatableness of these accursed, confounded, monstrous, diabolical, infernal hypermarket-acquired twenty-pence custard creams verily was the zenith of the real and figurative taking of the biscuit.
Ashmoria wrote:It was a dark and stormy night, a night so dark that ninjas can walk about freely as if they were ladies going to the town picnic, a night of deluges so strong that kittens and baby birds are found the next morning washed into the gutters, a night so dangerous that Molly McGuin stayed wrapped in her chartreuse snuggy eating popcorn by the light of American Idol on her television imagining the sweet love of Clay Akins rather than facing the truth.
Honourable mentions:
Yootwopia wrote:The Blackhawk thwopped over the dark, grim heights of the Urals with its compliment of bunched-up SEALs clinging to their M4A1 Carbines as if they were teenage sweethearts... the stooped Russians below had no earthly idea were about to get torn up like saran-wrapped jaffa cakes in a sack full of labradors.
Sane Outcasts wrote:It had been three long days since Harris last saw Verdida, days that had crawled by like an earthworm struggling to cross hot pavement on a sunny day, its slimy body gradually withering in the mild heat of the afternoon sun while the rocky ground scraped mercilessly at its unprotected belly.
Forsher wrote:Henrietta realised as she looked in the cold, hard glass of her mother's mirror, wearing her mother's wedding dress, that she looked exactly like her father, despite her hair, her make up and eyes being exactly the same as her mother's on the day of her wedding.
Nationstatelandsville wrote:"S-word!" shouted the young bartender as the cold, damp glass of beer slipped from her hands and was pulled down by gravity, a force which was extensively researched by scientists Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Issac Newton (1642-1727), towards the wooden and gum-covered floor, much like a glass of a drink similar to beer but not quite beer would, for the glass was filled with beer and thus would be very much like a glass filled with a beer-like substance that was not exactly like beer, for two substances can never truly be alike, unless they are.
Desperate Measures wrote:There was wonder and adventure in Harry Goldman's beady eyes as he set up his telescope on the roof of his '97 Chevy Impala, the metal crinkling beneath his feet as this was no place to stand but it did in fact offer a glorious view into the window of the octogenarian widow's bedroom as she unrolled sagging pantyhose from her varicose veined legs and removed her slimy dentures.
Farnhamia wrote:It was a bright and sunny morning, but dark clouds of rage hung over Thrungur the Unbearable’s mind like the stench from a burned out village of filthy farmers on the second or third day after he himself had burned it, which, oddly enough, is what was making him so angry, the stench, that is, which was wafting downwind to the camp where his reavers had been sleeping off two days of rapine and debauchery but were now awakening with coughing and retching, the sound of which sent Thrungur looking for a bucket into which to empty the roiling contents of his stomach, and wishing he hadn’t decided to try the fermented goat’s milk last night: someone would pay for this and right soon.
- very funny, but inadmissable because only one word's been changed from a real life opening sentence.Tmutarakhan wrote:One morning, as Gregor Samsa awoke from restless nightmares, he found himself transformed into a monstrous bunny.
Now, go forth and write badly!
And yes, I know this might arguably belong in Arts & Fiction, but this was originally an NSG competition - so an NSG competition it remains.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE 10 FINALISTS:
Voting is now open for four days, until a bit after 16:00 Cairo time (UTC+2) on the 12th of April
Good-spirited banter about the entries is encouraged.
Dumb Ideologies 1 wrote:The attendant sighed as the faulty coin-pusher scattered its contents around the arcade in a spray of legal tender shrapnel; was this what the fortune-teller meant when she told him change was in the air?
Dumb Ideologies 2 wrote:The dream long fought for had been realised, one people, one nation, one ruler, eighty-seven genders, but one question remained - what was the correct term of address for a feminine-leaning non-binary pansexual wolfkin absolute ruler of colour?
Piraccas wrote:We are creatures in tune with vibration: music, violent motions of the Earth, touches serene and ardent; it is these vibrations that massage the essence of our beings into peace- we shake things off- so it is these harmonic and physical oscillations that lead me to so very firmly believe that there is great healing power in twerking.
Cannot think of a name wrote:Gravel, it turned out, was a terrible substitute for toilet paper.
Hurdergaryp wrote:With the aftertaste of lima beans and cheap gin still lingering in the back of her mouth, she screamed at the top of her lungs "No Longer Shall We Be Forced To Remain In The House Of The Lord, FOREVER!" in a surprisingly deep baritone voice, while struggling to undo the straps of her season-appropriate lederhosen.
Bombadil wrote:D.I Max Strength dragged on his cigarette like he was sucking the last of the petrol out of a tank, his craggy eyes peered through warm rain that drizzled down like vinaigrette on a salad as he waited for the lady to return, a lady who both excited and frightened him, the combination of reward and hurt of a hot currry, like the best sort of sex.
Forsher wrote:As the heavenly bodies rose in the East, casting their gloried light over a rolling plain resplendent with the life of spring and the labour of the goodly creatures, from the littlest bee to the galloping horses, the armies that brought chaos, war and suffering to half a continent heaved and bellowed in a foetid stench of man, beast and metal, unaware of their impending destruction; for, as the armies stilled, that golden host crested the western hill, glittering in their fine satin underwear and gleaming with silver charm bracelets.
Czechostan wrote:Fireworks exploding before my eyes, steel drumsticks pounding at my ears, as my inert body acrobatically glided across the room, I began to reflect that he was not referring to a foreign culinary dish when he offered me a "knuckle sandwich."
An Alan Smithee Nation wrote:After centuries of deliberation by the finest ovine minds, the sheep General was finally ready to announce the plan for the conquest of Britain to the assembled woolly horde - "First we take Prestatyn, then we take King's Lynn".
Pax Nerdvana wrote:The crusty, weather beaten, old sailor sat at the bar, drinking whisky after whisky; because his spinach had failed him, so he sat there muttering something about "I yam no longer what I yam."