Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) was a tongue-in-cheek contest, held annually and sponsored by the English Department of San José State University in San Jose, California until 2025.^[1] Entrants were invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels" – that is, one which was deliberately bad.

According to the official rules, the prize for winning the contest was "a pittance".^[2] The 2008 winner received $250,^[3] while the 2014 winners' page said the grand prize winner received "about $150".^[4] In 2023, the prize was "a cheap certificate and bragging rights".^[5]

The contest was started in 1982 by Professor Scott E. Rice of the English Department at San Jose State University and was named for English novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the much-quoted first line "It was a dark and stormy night". This opening, from the 1830 novel Paul Clifford, reads in full:

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.

The first year of the competition attracted just three entries, but it went public the next year, received media attention, and attracted 10,000 entries.^[6] The contest eventually expanded into several subcategories, such as detective fiction, romance novels, Western novels, and purple prose. Sentences that were notable but not quite bad enough to merit the Grand Prize or a category prize were awarded Dishonorable Mentions.