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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Josh on August 09, 2007, 06:32:54 PM
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As blgarver suggested, this can be a spot where you can show off your most ludicrous, overcooked writing samples in the tradition of the Bulwer-Lytton contest. The samples are supposed to be parodies that represent the opening sentences of an imaginary novel.
I'm afraid there's no prize for this, except for, perhaps, a paper bag to put over your head to hide from the shame of such awful writing. Though if anyone wants to offer up a prize, go for it.
Have fun!
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Yay! Okay, I'll go first.
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It was fall, and my road led to Beaver.
The city of Beaver, that is, for the Celebratory Festival of Plentitude. I traveled alone in the failing daylight, whistling a mighty tune I’d created during a bath several days before. I planned to play the song at the Beaver Festival, if I had it finished in time.
Though it was cool, I wore only my white shirt that billowed in the scenty autumn breeze, and my pair of green leather pants that accentuated the bulge of my package. I was to deliver my package to a maiden with a big, pure heart and with ample chest to accommodate it.
In my travels, I’d given it to many a fair, pure maiden, all angels out of heaven. Indeed, I remember every one, though I have lost exact count and have forgotten all their names. They were all lovely, but none were able to handle my package.
So I continued my quest, spreading good cheer and STDs all along the way. Yes, my soothing and tranquil diddies are well known in the tri-kingdom area. I was born with gifted fingers, and until I was ten I used them to invade the private areas of ladies all over town. But it seemed Fate had a higher purpose for my talent, something bigger than pilfering the wardrobes of rich women. A decade after my birth I stopped snatching purses and picked up the lute.
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BLG
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This topic and this contest have intrigued me... I find I must contribute:
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She scuttled across the heavy shag carpet, procuring a scathing rug burn along her knees and palms, snagging one of her lime green Minolo Blahnik sandals on the foot of the too-ornate iron-wrought coffee table, abandoning her pink Prada purse to gain precious speed, and finally tipping face first into the sea of rust-colored shag, humiliation apparent in her tomato-red complexion, her lipstick smudged, her long strawberry blonde hair tangled but still glossy and full.
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That was a lot harder than I thought it'd be.
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Well, I guess I should add to my own non-contest contest.
--------------Begin Awful Writing
His skin stretched over his face so tightly that he looked like a newly risen vampire about to launch into the night on bat wings in search of fair maidens upon which he might cast his mesmeric gaze before plunging elongated canines into their quivering, pale skin, causing much heavings of bosoms and eyes rolled back in ecstasy, because really, how could someone as cadaverously ugly as him get anywhere near a fair maiden without hypnotic powers in the first place?
--------------End Awful Writing
I hope it's a good sign that writing this made it feel like gears were grinding in my head. I expected smoke to come out of my nostrils at one point.
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Can we post more than one horrid piece? Cause this is just too much fun.
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I hope so! Because with practice, I think i can get
better worse.
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I vote yes.
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Hmmm, work or put together a really bad opening sentence? I think work can wait, no?
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Gabriel, whose mother named him after the archangel of legend believing that he, the baby, would some day become the guiding angel that would lead her into a better life, slowly pulled up his socks, which were stitched with the letters “NYFD” and had been bought out of a vague sense of thanks towards a brotherhood of men he had never met who had bravely gone into the ignoble wreckage of two grand towers he had never stepped foot in, listening to the early morning news, filled as usual with the dreary, depressing litany of murders, rapes, and corrupt officials which was the ground state of life in the post-modern United States of America in which he found himself living.
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I outsourced to India:
I stared at the email from my tech support desk, and the message it contained: "Please do the needful." Was this a matter of bad translation, or a request to perform certain...favours...on the impoverished?
I shudder to think what someone over there who took the same English course might do if they were also a hacker..."P13z do teh N33d4...." The mind boggles.
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Ok, I suck at this.
But hey...it was a true story.
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BOOM!
Sam ducked as a piece of shrapnel tore across the sky and nearly grazed his ear. He leapt behind his car to avoid a tire that soared overhead. He crawled from behind his sedan and pulled the pin from his attache case. Chuckling, he lobbed the brief case over his hood.
He chuckled again as the briefcase went off, showering the street with glass.
"Alright," Steve said, coming out with his hands up.
"You consent, then?" Sam asked, coming out from behind his car.
"Fine, I'll trim my hedge."
"Looks like you won't have to. IT'S ON FIRE!"
I don't know, I don't think that was a very good attempt at being bad. I can't really tell if it's bad or not.
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"Blood, blood, blood.
It spattered the walls, the floor, even the ceiling in totally random yet strangely artistic configurations that Jackson Pollack, had he been there to see them, would surely have admired, before hurrying home to his studio to duplicate the effect on canvas."
And yes, that's the real opener I penned for a murder mystery that my cousin and I collaborated on about 20 years ago.
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I outsourced to India:
I stared at the email from my tech support desk, and the message it contained: "Please do the needful." Was this a matter of bad translation, or a request to perform certain...favours...on the impoverished?
I shudder to think what someone over there who took the same English course might do if they were also a hacker..."P13z do teh N33d4...." The mind boggles.
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Ok, I suck at this.
But hey...it was a true story.
Ha! If I had a dime for every time I have been told to "Please do the needful" I'd be a very rich woman indeed. ;)
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Hah. I loved that:
"Blood, blood, blood."
Classic.
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It was a dark and stormy night as The Writer sat brooding before the blank lavender tinted LCD screen of his computer (for he had read in some New Agey screed that lavender inspired creativity, and hadn't realized the article meant the herb, not the color), sweating and straining with all his might to force out a brilliant hook of an opening line for his latest novel, in spite of a case of writer's block that had stopped up his creative process worse than the cheese pizza he'd eaten that afternoon (Pappa John's) had stopped up his alimentary canal, when a blast of lightning crashing into and igniting the roof of the house across the street delivered the dose of Heaven-sent inspirational Ex-Lax he needed, and he began to type furiously, "The building was on fire, and it was not my fault. . ."
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It was a dark and stormy night as The Writer sat brooding before the blank lavender tinted LCD screen of his computer (for he had read in some New Agey screed that lavender inspired creativity, and hadn't realized the article meant the herb, not the color), sweating and straining with all his might to force out a brilliant hook of an opening line for his latest novel, in spite of a case of writer's block that had stopped up his creative process worse than the cheese pizza he'd eaten that afternoon (Pappa John's) had stopped up his alimentary canal, when a blast of lightning crashing into and igniting the roof of the house across the street delivered the dose of Heaven-sent inspirational Ex-Lax he needed, and he began to type furiously, "The building was on fire, and it was not my fault. . ."
LOL! Love it!
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OK, how's this:
"Moonlight, deflected from the crescent orb that floated weightlessly like a tiny ship lost in the vast inky ocean that is space, glinted off jeweled harness, illuminated pale, stern faces 'neath steel helmets, and washed feebly o'er the nametags fixed firmly to each mailed breast; Cliche, Purple Prose, Bad Sequel, and Plagiarism put spurs to their mighty steeds and reared up as one, bellowing a battle-cry that no mortal ear could hear, as the Four Horsemen Of The Literary Apocalypse galloped, silent and unheeded, through the deserted library, and the one who is called Daytime Television rode with them."
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"Moonlight, deflected from the crescent orb that floated weightlessly like a tiny ship lost in the vast inky ocean that is space, glinted off jeweled harness, illuminated pale, stern faces 'neath steel helmets, and washed feebly o'er the nametags fixed firmly to each mailed breast; Cliche, Purple Prose, Bad Sequel, and Plagiarism put spurs to their mighty steeds and reared up as one, bellowing a battle-cry that no mortal ear could hear, as the Four Horsemen Of The Literary Apocalypse galloped, silent and unheeded, through the deserted library, and the one who is called Daytime Television rode with them."
As they round the turn at Self Help Books going into the back stretch, Purple Prose leads Cliche by a nose, with Daytime TV coming up fast on the outside.
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So where's fan fiction's horse?
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R U kidding? Fan-Fic would be in the bar out of the rain & sleet, having a brew and watching the action on the big screen tv! Belly up to the bar... Northern Dancer's Secretariat Cigar. Horse butts passing methane regularly to sweeten the atmosphere and having a RPG game going on the side! :D :D :D
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The sad thing is, I am genuinely curious as to how most of these stories would develop o.O
Either I am amused entirely too easily, or some of these are so bad that they're really, in fact, good ^.^
Hooray for camp!
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I won't contribute, but please keep this up. It seriously made my whole friggin day fun. ;D . Seriously. The Whole. Friggin. Day.
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I'm going to post a worst-written line that I heard read at a conference...I don't remember who originally wrote it, otherwise I'd give credit...
"His muscles bulged and twitched like a hoard of hamsters all humping one another beneath a tightly stretched canvas."
And there you have it.
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Of course, for really, truly bad writing, there's no topping "The Eye of Argon." Any story that can consistently have you read a sentence and still have no idea what it's saying is gold in the "Best of the Worst" category.
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Here's a link to The Eye of Argon if anyone wants to take a look:
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/eyeargon/eyeargon.htm
It truly is a "classic".
I believe the hamster line was a runner-up in the Bulwer-Lytton contest (no idea what year, though.)
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If you grew up learning good writing habits, striving for clarity and conciseness, and following The Elements of Style, then it's hard to throw it all out the window and write bad without a deliberate effort.
The defenestration of good style, good taste, good grammar, good spelling, and good sense just comes naturally to some folks, though, as illustrated by many examples posted on the various fanfic web sites. There may be the occasional nugget in there someplace, but it's unfortunately hidden in a vast slush pile of mostly adolescent drivvel. The Eye of Argon is definitely a gold nugget.
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I'm going to post a worst-written line that I heard read at a conference...I don't remember who originally wrote it, otherwise I'd give credit...
"His muscles bulged and twitched like a hoard of hamsters all humping one another beneath a tightly stretched canvas."
And there you have it.
Now, see, I don't see that as bad writing. I see that as well-crafted cheese, extremely vivid and horrendously ludicrous all at the same time. It took a sick and twisted imagination to come up with that metaphor ^.^
The Eye of Argon, however, from what little I could manage to read, is bad. It isn't funny, or clever, just tedious.