Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 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. 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". The 2008 winner received $250, while the 2014 winners' page said the grand prize winner received "about $150". In 2023, the prize was "a cheap certificate and bragging rights".
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:
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. 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.
The contest was discontinued in 2025 by a retired Scott Rice, citing the increasing burden of running it at an older age.
Winning entrants
The winning entries are available at the contest website.Collections
Six books collecting the best BLFC entries have been published:It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, Son of "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night", Bride of Dark and Stormy, It Was a Dark & Stormy Night: The Final Conflict, Dark and Stormy Rides Again, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night,An audio cassette of the winning entries in the BLFC was also released:It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, audio cassette,.