This is a return visit for Leigh Ward-Smith as guest storyteller. In September of last year she shared the intriguing prologue to The Enhanced, her science fiction novel-in-progress.
Handing over to Leigh now, she’s going to tell you about what she has in store for you this month re the “best of the worst” microfiction (hence the title to this post) …
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As a writer, it’s not often that you strive for an ugly sentence. Good, yes. Bad, no. But the yearly Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (BLFC) http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/index.html seeks just that: your best worst opening line to a novel. Named for Victorian-era novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton—perhaps best-known as the bloke who came up with “It was a dark and stormy night,” and way before Snoopy the beagle, no less—the BLFC has evolved over the years to add more genres and permutations of awarded categories, including romance, Western, science fiction, children’s literature, and purple prose. The official deadline for your worst 50- to 60-word write-mare is April 15, although June 30 is the actual deadline. Consider constructing your gnarliest one-liner; Professor Scott Rice, the progenitor of the BLFC, proclaims that WWW stands for wretched writers (or, indeed, writing) welcome, so you’ve nothing to fear. Here’s mine:
In the Kingdom of the Kelpies, there was a particularly curious young seafoam-frothing foal who couldn’t figure out why the “bobbling legs things” were so taken aback when he surfaced; after all, he was a run-of-the-mill bioluminescent horse composed of saltwater and strings of green gloop that only wanted to plant wet equine kisses on their screaming, stretched surfaces then drag them down to the trenched graveyard of the sea with his oyster-shell teeth.
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Thank you, so much Leigh, for your contribution for this month, after receiving my invitation at extremely short notice.
Leigh Ward-Smith lives and writes vicariously–and humourously (she hopes, anyway)–through her two children, one husband, and six ducks. She also thinks it’s a very good thing those numbers aren’t reversed! Follow more of her work at Leigh’s Wordsmithery.
You can also find the links to previous guest storyteller posts at https://sarahpotterwrites.com/guest-storytellers-2/
Sarah Potter Writes 