The most recent annual results from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The contest challenges entrants to compose bad opening sentences to imaginary novels and takes its name from the Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who began his “Paul Clifford” with “It was a dark and stormy night.”

My favorite this year is the following, which received only a Dishonorable Mention in the Crime category, mainly because I have several friends who will identify with this and because it all conforms to my warped sense of humor, which is perhaps as good a reason as any to be awarded a Dishonorable Mention.

The victim was a short man, with a face full of contradictions: amalgam, composite, dental porcelain, with both precious and non-precious metals all competing for space in a mouth that was open, bloody, terrifying, gaping, exposing a clean set of asymptomatic impacted wisdom teeth, but clearly the object of some very comprehensive dental care, thought Dirk Graply, world-famous womanizer, tough guy, detective, and former dentist.

Basil McDonnell
Vancouver, B.C.

Go HERE to get the rest of the 2011 contest results.