WORLD’S BEST HACK

It’s time once again for the only literary contest that matters, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the Dark and Story Night contest) which challenges writers to create the worst possible opening sentence to an imaginary novel. This year’s winner is David McKenzie of Washington State, who came up with this piece of crap: "Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests." Check out Bulwer-Lytton.com for a list of finalists in several other categories including this winner from the detective genre: “She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.” And then there’s this gem from the romance category: “The first time I saw her she took my breath away with her long blonde hair that flowed over her shoulders like cheese sauce on a bed of nachos, making my stomach grumble as she stepped into the room, her red knit dress locking in curves better than a Ferrari at a Grand Prix.