Lyttle Lytton Contest
The Lyttle Lytton Contest is a diminutive derivative of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, and was first run in the year 2001. Both are tongue-in-cheek contests that take place annually and in which entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels."
The Lyttle Lytton Contest (run by Adam Cadre) varies from the Bulwer-Lytton in favoring extremely short first sentences, of 25 words or fewer. For the 2008 competition, the maximum combined word count of an entrant's submission has been increased to 30 words, and an individual entry may consist of multiple sentences. After the 2010 contest, the maximum word count was increased again to 33 words, although Cadre has stated that it's unlikely that it will be raised again, to keep the "short sentence" feature that sets Lyttle Lytton apart from Bulwer-Lytton.
Winners
First-place winners for each year of the contest are:
- 2011 - "The red hot sun rose in the cold blue sky." (Judy Dean)
- 2010 - "“I shouldn’t be saying this, but I think I’ll love you always, baby, always,” Adam cried into the email. " (Shexmus Amed)
- 2009 - "The mighty frigate Indestructible rounded the Horn of Africa and lurched east’ard." (Pete Wirtala)
- 2008 - "Because they had not repented, the angel stabbed the unrepentant couple thirteen times, with its sword." (Graham Swanson)
- 2007 - "It clawed its way out of Katie, bit through the cord and started clearing." (Gunther Schmidl)
- 2006 - "This is the cipher key for all that follows: |||||| || |!" (P. Scott Hamilton)
- 2005 - "John, surfing, said to his mother, surfing beside him, 'How do you like surfing?' " (Eric Davis)
- 2004 - "This is the story of your mom's life." (Rachel Lambert)
- 2003 - "For centuries, man had watched the clouds; now, they were watching him." (Stephen Sachs)
- 2002 - "The pain wouldn't stop, and Vern still had three cats left." (Andrew Davis)
- 2001 - "Turning, I mentally digested all of what you, the reader, are about to find out heartbreakingly." (Top Changwatchai)
In addition to the main contest, others are offered from year to year. The winners of those are:
- Freeform contest, 2007 - "Scaling Everest was, by far, the most amazing and transformative experience of my life. Unfortunately, this is a thesis on context-free grammars." (Jonathan Blum)
- Paragraph contest, 2006 - "The evil Intergalactic Emperor surveyed the destruction he wrought. 'Booyah!' he cried with glee. 'I'm in ur base! I'm killing all ur mans!' " (James Wall)
- Political speech contest, 2004 - "While my opponents fellate the Satan of special interests, I go down on Reform's compassionate angel." (anonymous)
- Paul Clifford contest, 2003 - "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. Steeling himself for battle, Fyandor, the oldest and bravest of the lamps, proclaimed, 'Nay, foul wind, this will not be the night of our extinguishment!' " (anonymous)
- Last line contest, 2002 - " 'Lawd a'mighty,' howled Caleb, to the consternation of those few who still remained in the helpless, drifting lifeboat, 'some of y'all are lookin' mighty tasty!' " (Mark Silcox)
External links