The Lyttle Lytton Contest

The 2009 winners are up!

Also, the Lyttle Lytton Contest now has a page on Facebook. Go check it out if you're into that sort of thing.

2010

To avoid the annual problem of people sending in entries long after the contest has finished, I've decided to just accept entries year-round. This means that the 2010 contest is already underway. See the rules below.

2009 winners

2008 winners

2007 winners

2006 winners

2005 winners

2004 winners

2003 winners

2002 winners

2001 winners

About Lyttle Lytton

The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to pen the world's most atrocious first line to a novel. Winners — and, for that matter, runners-up and honorable mentions — are generally very long. An example from the 2000 contest, singled out by the contest organizer as an especially strong contender:

Gwendolyn, a world-class mountaineer, summoned the last of her strength for one more heroic haul on the nylon strap (for she was, after so many failed attempts, dangerously close to exhaustion) and looked heavenward with resolve, aware that, in spite of her fatigue and anguish, she must breach the crevice in one well-coordinated movement, somehow cleave the smooth fissure with the flimsy synthetic strand even though she was chaffed raw by her repeated efforts, or more sensibly, just give the heave-ho to this new-fangled (and painfully small) Victoria's Secret thong and slip into her well-worn — and infinitely more roomy — knickers.

Gary Dahl

I say, bleah. Brevity is the soul of wit, and this goes on and on and on. I prefer the likes of this:

Jennifer stood there, quietly ovulating.

Adam Cadre

The non-action of "stood," the vagueness of "there," the involuntary process of ovulation treated as an activity, the inappropriateness of mentioning the volume of that non-activity, the uncomfortably gynecological detail of mentioning it at all — all combine to make a cringeworthy sentence. And since it's only five words long, its impact is instant; you don't have readers slogging through clause after clause after clause. So in 2001 I started a contest much like the Bulwer-Lytton, only with entrants limited to 25 words.

The Rules

Your task is to write the beginning of an imaginary novel. Your goal is to make it hilariously bad. Note that wacky situations and intentional jokes are more suited to the beginnings of good comedic novels, not bad serious ones, and are therefore not really what this contest is about. On the flip side, significant butchering of the language (as opposed to subtle butchering) isn't all that funny either. See the archives linked above to get the feel for what sort of thing tends to win.

You need not limit an entry to one sentence, and you can even enter more than once. However, the maximum length of all your entries combined is 30 words. If the combined number of words you enter is over 30, all your entries are subject to disqualification.

Your entry (or entries) may be original or may quote another source; if it quotes another source, you must state the source. Separate winners will be selected from among the original entries and from those that quote other sources.

A few tips:

  • One common fault with Lyttle Lytton submissions over the years has been that while a sentence may be funny, if it doesn't sound like the first sentence of a novel, it's not really appropriate. So please make sure that your entry actually sounds like it could be the beginning of a book.

  • Again, please read the pages of previous winners (linked above) to get a sense of the sort of badness this contest is looking for. Gross-out humor tends to do poorly, not so much because it's offensive as because it's rarely funny. Neither is basic incompetence in spelling and grammar. Neither are puns. (But there are always exceptions...)

  • On the flip side, while "bad but not funny" isn't what this contest is about, neither is "funny but not bad." If you've written an entry that falls into the latter category, don't submit it — keep going and get it published!

Entries should be submitted by email, from a working email address. Please include your name, or specify that you choose to be anonymous. I will accept entries up to but not after 15 April 2010 at noon, Pacific Time. The winning entries (or winning portions of longer entries) and any honorable mentions will be linked to this page shortly thereafter (very likely within a day or two).

Finally, the usual fine print regarding word count:

  • Contractions count as one word. "Don't" is one word; so is "I'd've."

  • You get one free hyphen per word. "Horse-piercing" counts as one word. "Non-horse-piercing" counts as two. "The cat gave me that hey-don't-look-at-me-pal-I'm-not-the-one-who-hasn't-changed-the-litter-in-a-month look" counts as 23 words, not seven.

  • Punctuation doesn't count as a word so long as it's being used as punctuation and not as a lexical element. "Whoa — check it out" counts as four words, not five. But "'I'm changing my name to @#%#@,' Prince said" counts as eight words, not seven.

  • Initialisms count as one word. I'm not going to charge you three words for "NFL" or "OMG".

Good luck!

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