However, the opening phrase of his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford (famous for being used by Snoopy) has become a literary icon. Or should I say a literary laughingstock. "It was a dark and stormy night..." Those seven words have become synonymous with wooden writing.
They are just the beginning of his 58-word opening sentence, and the impetus for San Jose State University's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Since 1982, the contest has attracted writers from across the country. Wordsmiths have strove to concoct the worst, most convoluted and verbose opening lines. Over the years, prizes in crime fiction, romance novels, purple prose and other sub-categories have developed.
This year's winner was Sue Fondrie: "Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."My favorite nugget came from Mike Pedersen, the Purple Prose winner: "As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire sky dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt seas that deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at the horizon, Ian was at a loss as to why he felt blue." A periphrastic locution worthy of Thesaurus Girl herself.
Every year with the contest winners' announcement, I vow to submit an entry for the upcoming year. Alas, my penchant for procrastination prevails, and I have yet to plunge into that prose pool. A love of film noir, pot-boilers and Runyanesque slang impels me to the crime fiction category:I figured her for a good egg, not a banana, but I guess my judgement took a powder at the sight of those never-ending gams, so she cheesed me and now I'm on the lam with just a gatt, a sawbuck and a vacant expanse of empty where my heart used to beat. As ever- BB
"I've been as bad an influence on American Literature as anyone I can think of." - Dashiell Hammett
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