The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenges entrants to pen the world’s most atrocious first line to a novel.  Winners (and 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

The problem with this is that it actually is modeled after the prose of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, known for what the contest organizer called “perfervid tur­gidity”, which blunts its comedic impact.  Brevity is the soul of wit, but this goes on and on and on.  This is more my speed:

	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 measuring 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.  (This has since been changed to 200 characters.)

(New rules for 2024 in red)

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 history pages 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 submit multiple entries if all your entries combined in a given division fit into the 200-character limit.  How­ever, you cannot submit multiple entries separately.  No matter how many entries it contains, only one submission will be accepted per entrant in a given year.  Also, please note that brevity is one of the chief aims of this contest, so entries that fall well short of the limit are likely to do better than those that push up against it.  Before you submit your entry, look it over: is there anything you could cut out?  A lot of submissions over the years have consisted of a great ten-word sentence buried within a thirty-word entry.

Your entry (or entries) may be original or may quote another source; if an entry 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.  There are generally a lot fewer winners in the Found division than the Original division; this contest is not intended as a roundup of bad fanfic.  It is also not a generic bad writing contest: an entry that sounds like the begin­ning of a bad news article (for instance), but not the beginning of a bad novel, should probably not be submitted.  But sometimes people happen across pub­lished sentences that just scream to be Lyttle Lytton entries, and it would be a crime not to showcase them. For 2024, I am adding a third division for entries generated by computer programs such as ChatGPT.  You may enter one, two, or all three categories.

A few tips:

• Again, 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.

• And 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 generally not 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 using the form below.  You must submit your name and a working email address.  If you don’t want your name published along with your entry, click the “don’t publish” box.  No pseudonyms, please.  I will accept entries up to but not after 2024 June 15 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, likely within a month.

Good luck!