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Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 2:32 pm
by scw1217
I have read these before, but must admit the runner up really has me laughing!
"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' - and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' - well do you, punk?"

Stuart Vasepuru
Edinburgh, Scotland

Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 6:56 pm
by skinem
Oh, no! It's Unclean Harold!

Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 8:09 pm
by scw1217
Oh, no! It's Unclean Harold!
:lol: Took me a minute to get that one.

Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 11:30 pm
by gailr
Ahhh, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Also I love the bad Hemingway contests. They are good.

Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 7:58 am
by scw1217
Ahhh, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Also I love the bad Hemingway contests. They are good.
I read Hemingway once and couldn't get into his style of character conversation. It seemed unnatural and choppy to me. In any case, I've not heard of the bad Hemingway contest. In light of my opinion of Hemingway, they are either really bad or much better. :D

Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 2:01 pm
by Perry
I just now had a chance to read the full page. I loved every single bad joke (even the refrigerator magnates)!

Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 3:11 pm
by Bailey
Suze, funny you should mention loquacious

mark bin-dere-dun-dat Bailey
I guess y'all really don't need me anymore.

Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 3:33 pm
by scw1217
Suze, funny you should mention loquacious

mark bin-dere-dun-dat Bailey
I guess y'all really don't need me anymore.
Great minds think alike eh?

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 2:15 am
by gailr
Ahhh, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Also I love the bad Hemingway contests. They are good.
I read Hemingway once and couldn't get into his style of character conversation. It seemed unnatural and choppy to me. In any case, I've not heard of the bad Hemingway contest. In light of my opinion of Hemingway, they are either really bad or much better. :D
Hemingway did have his eloquent moments:
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. ― Ernest Hemingway

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 12:49 pm
by scw1217
Hemingway did have his eloquent moments:
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. ― Ernest Hemingway
Nor did I mean to totally discount everything Hemingway has written. I just did not care for his style of writing.

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 5:21 pm
by skinem
Ahhh, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Also I love the bad Hemingway contests. They are good.
I read Hemingway once and couldn't get into his style of character conversation. It seemed unnatural and choppy to me. In any case, I've not heard of the bad Hemingway contest. In light of my opinion of Hemingway, they are either really bad or much better. :D
Thanks for the B-W link!
Unnatural and choppy?
Hemingway?
No. Natural and choppy. Mostly men speaking. REAL men thought Hemingway wordy. His characters used words. Didn't grunt and point. His characters spoke briefly. They spoke directly. They spoke true. They spoke this way before fighting for their country. Or fishing. Or hunting, or maybe drinking. When drinking they spoke briefly and true. Again.

Sorry...I think I was channeling there for a minute...

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 5:41 pm
by scw1217
Thanks for the B-W link!
Unnatural and choppy?
Hemingway?
No. Natural and choppy. Mostly men speaking. REAL men thought Hemingway wordy. His characters used words. Didn't grunt and point. His characters spoke briefly. They spoke directly. They spoke true. They spoke this way before fighting for their country. Or fishing. Or hunting, or maybe drinking. When drinking they spoke briefly and true. Again.

Sorry...I think I was channeling there for a minute...
LOL. Channel on. It was the "briefly, directly" I did not like. I kept thinking, "No one talks like that."

Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 8:52 pm
by gailr
Unnatural and choppy?
Hemingway?
No. Natural and choppy. Mostly men speaking. REAL men thought Hemingway wordy. His characters used words. Didn't grunt and point. His characters spoke briefly. They spoke directly. They spoke true. They spoke this way before fighting for their country. Or fishing. Or hunting, or maybe drinking. When drinking they spoke briefly and true. Again.

Sorry...I think I was channeling there for a minute...
Very nice, skinem! For the unsure, there's a javascript generator (with a link to three chapters of an inactive Bad Hemingway story) to help find your inner Heming. This is one site. There are others.
It is written with gusto. It is written for laughs and the joy that comes from bad writing.

The writers of "A Bad Hemingway Story" struggle with the short sentences and the runon sentences and the pointless but rich descriptions for that is what writers of Bad Hemingway must do.

They write. They use email lists to write. They use the keyboard and the mouse. But most of all they write.

Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 9:05 am
by scw1217
Thanks for that link, gailr. Though I did not read it all, I can say it was truly "Bad Hemingway"!

Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 2:42 am
by Stargzer
...

Hemingway did have his eloquent moments:
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. ― Ernest Hemingway
Hmmm. I wonder when Hemingway wrote that; it almost sounds like he's quoting from Wilfred Owens' Dulce Et Decorum Est, but maybe he, too, was quoting Horace.

Wikipedia says the poem was written in 1917 but published posthumously in 1921.