Bulwer-Lytton Worst Writing Award Announced

'It was a dark and stormy night......' Photo by Ambro

Imagine sweating for years over your magnum opus: painstakingly choosing each comma, each word, even which font your masterwork will be presented to the world in. Sounds like hard work doesn’t it? Spare a thought for American Authour, Sue Fondrie, who this week was awarded the Bulwer-Lytton prize for the worst sentence published this year.

Although the name of the prize is not as well known as the Booker or the Costa Award, nearly everyone can quote the beginning of the first sentence to ever win the ‘accolade’:

‘It was a dark and stormy night when….’

This line opened the 1830 novel, Paul Clifford written by English poet and novelist, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. The prize was set up in 1980 by the English department of San Jose State University and named in Bulwer-Lytton’s honour.

This year’s ‘winner’ was duly awarded the prize for the following sentence:

‘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.’

Fondrie’s sentence is the shortest to ever win the top prize.

What do you think? Have you heard worse? Answers on a postcard (or you can just leave a comment below and save yourself the postage).