TTAC Contributor Recognized For Bad Writing
We’ve been often accused of hiring bad writers here at TTAC — and now we have confirmation.
Our own Steve Lynch, former Big Time Auto Industry Executive and author of the book about the Honda scandal, just received a Dishonorable Mention nod in the 34th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, where entrants are challenged to write the worst possible opening sentence to an imaginary novel.
The contest, sponsored by the English Department of San José State University, is named after Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose opening line in his 1830 novel “Paul Clifford” has been mocked relentlessly over the years: “It was a dark and stormy night … ”
It goes without saying that Lynch’s entry was automotive related.
Lynch was recognized for this entry in the Detective/Crime Category:
Just after dawn on the morning of the last day of his life, Anthony Scanzio looked out his window and again saw the two men parked down the street in a Gloss Black 2016 Chrysler 300C, and coincidentally you can buy one just like it from the author’s uncle at Lyndhurst Chrysler and get a great deal, ask for Eddie!
How does one achieve such suck-cess?
“You have to be good writer imitating a bad writer who thinks he or she is a good writer,” said Lynch, adding, “I thought about using a Hellcat to just to make BTSR happy but that would have been too over-the-top for this story.”
This is the third time Lynch’s work has been recognized by the contest. He won the Detective Category in 2010 and remembered the reaction from his friends.
“They all said the same thing, ‘How do I tell that writing from your regular writing?’”
The Bulwer-Lytton contest has had one grand prize-winning sentence with an automotive slant. In 2005, Dan McKay of Fargo won with this entry:
As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.
Lynch previously penned an automotive-themed entry that was rejected, so consider this its world premiere.
Her delicate features reminded Robert of a bower of roadside flowers, not like the bluebonnets or Indian blankets along Texas highways, but like the daisies on a wooden cross by the side of the road marking the spot where two teenagers died after crashing a 1996 Honda Civic.
So, do you think you could do better, er, worse? Feel free to submit your car-related bad opening sentences below. Rather than Bulwer-Lytton, we will call it the Baruth-Lynch bad writing contest.
[Image: dogster.com]
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This is a story about a boy and his car stories. The boy, crabspirits, would write the local paper's car advice columnist twice weekly. One for each day published. Monday; Thursday; And again the next week. After a while, the columnist took note.
It was the Porsche of times, it was the Yugo of times, it was the age of Lutz, it was the age of Marchionne, it was the epoch of Bark, it was the epoch of Baruth, it was the season of station wagons, it was the season of SUVs, it was the spring of manuals, it was the winter of automatics, we had Rte 66 before us, we had pot holes before us, we were all going direct to Lime Rock, we were all going direct to Heartland Park - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its TTAC authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.