Eddie Pensier writes:

What time, you ask? The announcement of the winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, whence entrants compete to come up with the worst first lines of (unwritten) novels.

This year’s victorious entry by Chris Wieloch of Brookfield, WI is a masterpiece of wretched prose:

She strutted into my office wearing a dress that clung to her like Saran Wrap to a sloppily butchered pork knuckle, bone and sinew jutting and lurching asymmetrically beneath its folds, the tightness exaggerating the granularity of the suet and causing what little palatable meat there was to sweat, its transparency the thief of imagination.

Some of the runners-up are pretty terrific too, in their ghastly way:

The day Anthony and Charlotta met was a special one, not merely because of the truly magical first encounter of the would-be lovers – they reached for the same pair of chopsticks at The Lucky Dragon’s all-you-can-eat Chinese food lunch buffet – but also because it was the day the lizard aliens came to earth and destroyed all of mankind with their poison gas bombs and acid catapults. — Krista Holm, Helsinki, Finland

Tex sauntered into the saloon, tipped his hat towards Miss Kitty seated at the bar, and drawled, “I’ve been excogitatin’, and we don’t take kindly to no loquacious sesquipedalians ‘round these parts, lessin’ they be indigenous” – and with that, subsequently shot dead the visiting chatty professor of English standing next to her. — Rick Cheeseman, Waconia, MN

Observing how the corpse’s blood streaked the melting vanilla ice cream, Frank wanted to snap his pen in half and add drops of blue ink to the mix, completing the color trio of the American flag – or the French flag, given that the body had just fallen from the top of the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower onto a crème glacée cart. — Alanna Smith, Wappingers Falls, NY

As the sun dropped below the horizon, the safari guide confirmed the approaching cape buffaloes were herbivores, which calmed everyone in the group, except for Herb, of course. — Ron D Smith, Louisville, KY

Got another favorite? Tell us in the comments.

Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton.