The Ruffled Crow

The results of the 29th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Awards are out and the overall winner is by Sue Fondrie from Oshkosh, WI:

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 personal favorite was the winner in the Fantasy category by Terri Daniel from here in the Emerald City:

Within the smoking ruins of Keister Castle, Princess Gwendolyn stared in horror at the limp form of the loyal Centaur who died defending her very honor; “You may force me to wed,” she cried at the leering and victorious Goblin King, “but you’ll never be half the man he was.”

And for my honorable mention, the runner-up in the sci-fi category by Elizabeth Muenster from Columbia, PA:

Sterben counted calcium bars in the storage chamber, wondering why women back on Earth paid him little attention, but up here they seem to adore him, in fact, six fraichemaidens had already shown him their blinka.

I have written a sentence like that before and perhaps worse.

Find out more about the contest and read more abominable first lines at the Bulwer-Lytton website (where “www” means “wretched writers welcome”) and check out my post on last year’s results.

The winners of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest “Where www means Wretched Writers Welcome.” Edward George Bulwer-Lytton was the genius who gave us the opener “It was a dark and stormy night…”

This years winners do not disappoint.

The Winner:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss–a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.

Molly Ringle

Seattle, WA

My favorite, however, is the runner-up. It looks and sounds like something I would write.

Through the verdant plains of North Umbria walked Waylon Ogglethorpe and, as he walked, the clouds whispered his name, the birds of the air sang his praises, and the beasts of the fields from smallest to greatest said, “There goes the most noble among men” — in other words, a typical stroll for a schizophrenic ventriloquist with delusions of grandeur.

Tom Wallace

Columbia, SC

I swear I’m going to enter this contest one of these days. I can be a contendah!