The Bulwer-Lytton writing contest, which since 1982 has challenged entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels, is no more. Its founders have decided the task of wading among thousands of deliberately bad opening lines to novels is simply too much after more than 40 years.
It is sad indeed, particularly because a category for environmental fiction was never created, yet categories for romance, Westerns, science fiction and detective fiction were.
Last year’s adventure award winner was:
“As Nils Nordgrund struggled mightily treading water to stay afloat, while grimly watching from a distance the Norwegian oil tanker he captained slowly sink in the treacherously dark and stormy seas off Murmansk—he gave no thought to whether the Giants had any chance at a pennant win this year.”
If there had been an environmental fiction category, I would have entered something like this:
“As the developer drove down Main Street in his Hummer with the license plate BigBux, the unshaven environmental advocate raised his fists in helpless rage, his tofu sandwich crumbling in his hands as the detritus fell onto his sandaled feet.”