The 2007 Lyttle Lytton Contest#
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The 2007 Winners
It clawed its way out of Katie, bit through the cord and started clearing.
“Crime,” declared the police captain, “is everywhere, crime, crime!”
Carl Muckenhoupt
The foot delivered an unending holocaust of pain as it rocketed into Zamboni’s crotch.
Leon Arnott
Ah, poetic Paris: with its pâtés and beaujolais, tiramisu and au jus.
Leslie Muir
Emperor Wu liked cake, but not exploding cake!
Bret Victor
The ship sliced through the ocean like wood through water.
J. Hudson
It only takes a second to realize that the simile in that one might be a bit too apt. Here’s one that’s subtler:
I knew it was called salsa dancing, but phew!
Rachel Spitler
Beatrice was aware that many had stood before her at this sacred place, with their own reasons, but with surprisingly few footprints.
Lisa Lindquist
Either the skeleton was a sheila, or some bloke had been sleeping with two silicone balloons on his chest.
Simon Parker
I don’t think the joke here is all that funny, but this entry had me at “the skeleton was a sheila”. Actually, any use of the word “sheila” (or, even better, “sheilas”) gets an unjustifiable number of bonus points as far as I’m concerned.
Anthony’s eyes bulged as we all watched, with languid, infinite slowness, his skull float across the cockpit.
Ben Tolkin
Why do I find orbital mishaps hilarious? I don’t know! At least Comrade Todd now has some company.
MacGyver had grown old.
Mathias Frank
Mesa Jar Jar Binks, and thisa mesa story!
Davina Aw
Aieee! Though this one’s even worse:
Shylockina, Queen of the Jews, surveyed her realm.
Tristan Parker
“What a horrible future we live in!” said FutureMax!
Mary Potts
The dawn blushed; not because it was embarrassed (that doesn’t even make sense), but because light bends funny.
Sean Kermes
The air hung heavy with the perfume of the circus—elephants, greasepaint and hot buttered chimps.
Mark Schweizer
The flowers in the meadow grew slowly, as did my erection.
Jacob Roberts
Tingling with joy and anticipation, Paul’s gonads are just exactly that way.
Jessie Mahan
It was more than a flirtation—he parted her labia like Moses did the Red Sea.
Clay White
For hobos, spring was the season of love.
Rob Lenzi
Sound effects were popular this year:
“BRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” rang the alarm clock, awakening me from my Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate-induced slumber.
Deborah Grumet
BUDDABUDABDABUDDA, went the bullets.
Brendan Adkins
Oh no! There they were coming! Francis shut his eyes and jumped into the fray. WANG! went the shovel wielded by him against the zombies. WANG! WANG!
Max L.
As you can see above, the contest now allows entries that go beyond a single sentence, so long as they stay within the length limit. Here are a couple that took advantage of this:
Scaling Everest was, by far, the most amazing and transformative experience of my life. Unfortunately, this is a thesis on context-free grammars.
Jonathan Blum
I think the sort of contrast there has been done before, but “context-free grammars” is intrinsically funny. This one’s also good:
Eve stood there, half-eaten apple in one hand, desire burning in her eyes. Adam screamed “Jesus woman what the fuck have you done?!!”
Edna Watkins
Fukutsuru died in 2005 but his frozen sperm lived on for people’s benefit.
Wikipedia entry on Fukutsuru
quoted by Eero Vitie
The king of ketchups was being dethroned, and I wanted an explanation.
Leigh Belanger in Cook’s Illustrated
quoted by Dan Schmidt
Academic writing is actually improved by imagining it as postmodern fiction:
Clarissa plunges—a verb of great adventurous spirit—into her day.
“The Sane Woman in the Attic” by Jesse Wolfe
quoted by Hannah Douglas
Sportswriting is… well, really, no context could make this mixed metaphor work:
He was marooned in the jaws of a human minefield, and with every step the noose grew tighter.
Jerry Izenberg in the New Jersey Star Ledger
quoted by Paul and Anthony Cuneo
Advertising becomes hip second-person narrative (it’s all the rage these days, you hear):
Feel your tensions melt away as you drive down Wildflower Lane; the natural beauty of the trees, the wildflowers and deer are all there to welcome you as you enter Domaine Madeleine.
domainemadeleine.com
quoted by P. Scott Hamilton
I’ll never forget that first morning I saw Francois Lake from outside of the front door of a small red log cabin as a small boy in late winter.
Richard Cannon in the program for a bluegrass festival
quoted by Jacqui Graham
By contrast, grabbing bad writing out of works of fiction doesn’t really work for some reason. I guess it’s the repurposing that I find amusing. Just trawling fanfiction.net or some such seems too easy. I don’t really have much interest in running a “mock other people’s existing writing” contest. That said, here are a couple of entries drawn from fiction:
It was rumored that the necklace had cost close to a million dollars. This was a small fortune in India—far beyond the reach of most people.
Blind Spot by Lynne Rebeiro and J. Chloe Braun
quoted anonymously
Because, y’know, in most countries a million dollars is chicken feed.
Anamaria had already gotten up obviously because there was no Anamaria in Anamaria’s bed.
fanfiction.net
quoted by Christine Dearden
FADE IN
EXT. FIELD – DAY
COW is standing in the field.
NARRATOR
The cow is sad.
(Pretending to be a mournful cow.)
Mooooooo.
Sean Kermes
A big part of why I run this contest year after year is to learn more about comedy. This entry would not be funny if the “Mooooooo” were given to the cow instead of the narrator. I find that fascinating—the fine line between stupid and clever.
Ext., outside Port-a-John.
A giant radioactive werewolf eats DORALEEN while boyfriend CHUCK looks on in horror.
CHUCK
Doraleen! Are you okay?
Mary Potts
This next one I almost left out because it hits a little too close to something I’m working on now!:
EXT FOREST – DAY
A group of furry brown squirrels run and play in the clearing of a dense thicket. Off to the side, PANDORA the squirrel leans against a tree smoking. Her fur is dyed black, culminating in a purple spike at the top of her head. She takes a drag of her cigarette and squints up at the sun.
PANDORA
My life is a void.
Bryan Fernando
And finally:
INT. MY MANSION – DUSK
A study in subdued luxury. A tall, handsome figure enters – it's ME.
NARRATOR
I have ninety minutes and lots of unpopular opinions, so let's get started.
Jonathan Blum
Nah, let’s conclude. In summary, I think 2007 was the best Lyttle Lytton Contest to date. I hope you agree! Or at the very least, I hope you didn’t find it an unending holocaust of pain.
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