The “Lyttle Lytton” contest (for shorter form version of the the-dark-and-stormy-night so-bad-it’s-good first novel sentence Bulwer-Lytton contest) has just been made known to me.

I share the site owner’s issue with the length of many B-L entries. If you can’t make it bad-funny in a few words, don’t bother.

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 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.

via The Lyttle Lytton Contest.