Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest Hall of Shame 2021!

19th century novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, famous for such lines as "It was a dark and stormy night…," was such a terrible writer that San José University started an annual contest to see who could write opening sentences even worse than his. Overlake annually does the same! Faculty vote on the students' entries, and choose the most creatively bad of the lot. We also always encounter a few "accidentally great" sentences for books we would love to read, so we acknowledge them as well. Here are the results from the 2021 contest!

The Bad Writing Hall of Shame 2021                                                     

First Place

I was falling, like a salad thrown out of a window.  —Brandon, 6th   

Second Place

I woke up smelling like day-old fish on fire. --Kirsten, 6th

Third Place

As she stepped into the kitchen, her stomach started grumbling like a gravel truck on a bumpy road. —Ellie, 7th

Accidentally Great Sentence Winner--Tie

I am as popular as boiled broccoli. —Madeline, 7th

I walked into the Taco Bell bathroom and it was a war zone. —Christopher, 6th,