Of course, the same goes for its inspiration, the infamous “It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

The BLFC is what it is, and it’s quite good for what it is. Complaining that it’s not a different sort of contest seems to miss the point…

Night had come to the city of Skalandarharia, the sort of night with such a quality of black to it that it was as if black coal had been wrapped in blackest velvet, bathed in the purple-black ink of the demon squid Drindel and flung down a black well that descended toward the deepest, blackest crevasses of Drindelthengen, the netherworld ruled by Drindel, in which the sinful were punished, the black of which was so legendarily black that when the dreaded Drindelthengenflagen, the ravenous blind black badger trolls of Drindelthengen, would feast upon the uselessly dilated eyes of damned, the abandoned would cry out in joy as the Drindelthengenflagenmorden, the feared Black Spoons of the Drindelthengenflagen, pressed against their optic nerves, giving them one last sensation of light before the most absolute blackness fell upon them, made yet even blacker by the injury sustained from a falling lump of ink-bathed, velvet-wrapped coal.’

Wow.  I see what you mean.

I do wish I could use some of these as examples in my fiction class.

Sue Fondrie

Deanna waited for him in a deliberate pose on the sailor-striped chaise lounge of the newly-remodeled Ramada, her bustier revealing the tops of her white breasts like eggs–eggs of the slightly undercooked, hard-boiled variety, showing a nascent jiggle with her apprehensive breath, eggs that were then peeled ever-so-carefully so as not to pierce the jellied, opaque albumen and unleash the longing, viscous yolk within–yes, she lay there, oblong and waiting to be deviled.

http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/04/the-shadow-war-of-the-night-dragons-book-one-the-dead-city-excerpt

No. You made that up. It’s very funny, but nobody included that in their serious work. Was it “serious” work? Was the person not writing to be silly?

No, you made that up. I simply won’t believe otherwise.

Edit: Ooooooh, OK, it’s not real. Gotcha.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/metaphor.aspShe caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

Not “real,” in the same way that the Bulwer-Lytton entrants aren’t real, but funny nonetheless.

The beast lumbered toward the maiden, its fetid breath announcing its presence to her (since she couldn’t see him due to the blindfold her captors had tied around her head), its jaws gaping open like a sub sandwich with too much meat, so that no matter how hard you try, you can’t possibly keep the lettuce or the tomatoes from squeezing out onto the table or, worse, your lap.

Must Be More Subtle About My Environmentalism . . . urgh!