Open and Closed

Dark and stormy starts

"Call me Ishmael"? No, far too good. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . ."? A beauty, a classic--but all wrong for the Second Annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which asks contestants to try their hand at composing truly atrocious opening sentences to hypothetical bad novels. Says San Jose State University English Professor Scott Rice: "We want the kind of writing that makes the reader say, 'Don't go on.' "

Founded by Rice, who has enlisted the assistance of fellow professors to judge the entries (some 700 so far), the contest was named in dishonor of poor Edward G.E.L. Bulwer-Lytton. A popular and workmanlike 19th century British novelist, Bulwer-Lytton wrote a book, Paul Clifford, that unfortunately began, "It was a dark and stormy night. . ." Among the exquisitely bad sentences sent to the California (zip code: 95192) judges: "Screaming like a banshee, bargaining like a waterfront drug dealer, bleeding like a side of beef in an abattoir, the Chinese sailor croaked out one word: 'Firelight' (a code word? or a dying man's resurrection of a beloved childhood memory?) and fell to the ground, sprawled out like an epileptic lobster, clutching in his fist loosened by the merciful kiss of death fire of another sort: a 20-carat, flawless blue diamond."

Another, more succinct contender: "He had hewn his house and land from twelve acres of Alaska wilderness, Biff Hanratty had, and he knew one thing--he would never share them with a woman."

The contest, Rice says, is a perverse but true test of talent: "You have to know what is good before you can write something truly awful." Why would anyone vie for the Bulwer-Lytton prize? Jokes Rice: "They want the chance to become a household name." Contest deadline: April 15. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.