Monday, October 26, 2009

One of the worst

Not to brag or anything, but the Deseret News recognized me this morning for my bad writing.

Last year when the Bad Opening Sentences contest came around, I couldn't think of anything to send in. Then, as soon as the deadline passed, two or three ideas came immediately to mind. I wrote them down and added to the list from time to time, and this year I was ready.

The funny thing is, the one they decided to print was not the one I thought was the best (that is, worst). I'll have to come up with new ones for next year, and since I don't want the other awful ones to be wasted, here they are for the historical record.

The one they printed for "Best Local Color":

As LaVonda waited uncomfortably for the uniformed officers to use the "Jaws of Life" to extricate her from her mangled car, she pondered in turn the fragility of life, the massiveness of 18-wheelers, the difficulty of text-messaging while eating fries and driving, and finally, how she could use this experience as an object lesson in her next Sunday school class.


And here are the others. For the last one, you have to understand that there's an ongoing joke about entries involving talking unicorns.


Marcia snuggled into John's arms, thinking how lucky she was to have found him, and how different her life had been ever since the Liquid-Plumr of his love had eaten its way through the clogged drainpipe leading to her heart.

Fifty years, it had been -- fifty tedious, painful years of waiting –- waiting, ever hoping, yet hardly daring to hope; fifty long years had rolled on, leaving him trapped, unable to move in any direction, fixed in time by an insurmountable force –- at least, it felt like fifty years, but he had probably only been at the intersection of Bangerter and 35th for three and a half minutes before the light finally changed.

Doug had just spent three hours connecting and re-connecting the TV, DVD player, stereo system, and the new speakers, and now, as he thumbed the power button on the remote and the poignant notes of the "Gilligan's Island" theme song filled the room, he couldn't help murmuring in awe, "I must be a genius or somethin'."

Lying with his head and shoulders under the bathroom sink, an impressive array of tools arranged where he could easily reach them, competently and efficiently using his wrench, Jed felt like one of the engine room personnel on the Starship Enterprise –- not the chief engineer, it would be presumptuous to compare his moderate skill with that of the master, but certainly one of the trusted assistants -– until the trap suddenly came loose and his new identity was washed away in a rush of dirty water.

As Xyla the warrior princess, scantily clad in leather and ready for battle, galloped into the village on her magnificent Arabian steed, she was outraged to see that show-off Princess Xxyyna from the next kingdom over, clad in even less leather, dismounting from her talking unicorn to accept the adulation of the villagers for whom she had obviously already saved the day.

1 comment:

Cori said...

I leave this comment in recognition of your fabulously horrible writing skills, and hope that there will be more to come especially because I liked the Enterprise one and think that many can relate, not because they like to fix plumbing or even because they watch Star Trek and get the joke, but because all of our dreams are really awash in the dirty water of life waiting to be rescued by our inner XxyyZZla princess.