by Jim Guigli
We are delighted to welcome novelist Jim Guigli as our guest.
Jim new novelette features Sacramento private eye Bart Lasiter — Bad News for a Ghost (Jim Guigli, January 2013 ebook format) — who was introduced in an award-winning sentence.
But we're getting ahead of Jim here, who tells us how one sentence can change your life. And he is giving 15 of our readers a chance to win a copy of the book; details below.
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Writing one sentence can change your life.
Just ask one of those people who have written a carelessly worded letter to the President. But, that's not what I'm talking about.
Photo provided courtesy of
Jim Guigli
I wrote a sentence in 2006 that won Grand Prize in San Jose State's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. That's where you try to write the worst opening sentence to a fictitious novel. Mr. Bulwer-Lytton must have thought "It was a dark and stormy night" would knock people's socks off. If he only knew. Some people call The Bulwer-Lytton the "bad writing contest," but I think writing is writing, and writers write. Whether something is bad writing or good writing is sometimes arguable, until it sells. If it sells a lot, it's all good, and contrary opinions are sour grapes.
A writer who can write both bad sentences and good sentences is versatile and capable. Versatility reminds me of the story about Texas Governor John Connelly, a former schoolteacher. He was applying for a new teaching position when he was asked how he would reconcile what the Old Testament said and what Darwin had said about the creation of life. He allegedly replied, "I can teach it either way."
Well, I worked and schemed to write good bad sentences. I entered sixty-four bad sentences in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest between October, 2005 and March, 2006. They all weren't good-bad. Some were bad-bad. A few of the better ones (IMHO) can be seen on my website.
As the weeks passed, I read my sentences to my wife and friends, who mostly laughed and rarely criticized. My listeners were either very supportive, or polite-but-disinterested. I had no thoughts of winning the Contest. My goal was to write a bad sentence good enough to warrant an honorable mention, and be published in the next compilation of Dark and Stormy sentences. Published. Fame!
But I did win, the whole burrito. That year the judges, mostly former Grand Prize winners and others from San Jose State University, chose my sentence above all others — due to, I'm sure, a dry year, alcohol, and whim. I am blessed. When I told my wife I'd won, she said it was the day she was most proud of me, surely a measure of my other accomplishments. She is less excited lately. When she reminds me that I'd said I would clean the garage, I remind her that I am an internationally famous author.
My winning bad sentence:
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said, You've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
What fun! Several weeks of radio — domestic and foreign — TV, and print interviews later, I had people asking me, "What comes next?" I hadn't realized that people expected that there would be more to the story. It wasn't supposed to be a real novel.
About a year later, after hearing again, "What comes next?" I got an idea and wrote a first page for a Bart Lasiter story, of course using my famous opening sentence. I decided that Bart had to be an ex-Berkeley police officer. After all, Berkeley is Berzerkely. Then I moved Bart from Berkeley to Sacramento, to make it easier for me to research his environs. My big idea was to write a book of short stories, each one opening with that sentence, and each one with a different woman walking into Bart's office. But, I found that I'm not that good at writing short.
The first story I planned was to be about a rich older woman, yet young and attractive enough to fit that opening sentence. I thought that the shoreline of Lake Tahoe would be a good setting for her, and I could exploit my interest in classic boats. In August, 2007, I drove up to Tahoe to see classic boats at the annual Concours d'Elegance in Carnelian Bay, and gather background and atmosphere for this simple short story. Several years later I completed my first draft. The short story had become a novel that exceeded one hundred and ten thousand words, spanned fifty years of Nevada history, and touched on pirates, casinos, the Mafia, and Frank Sinatra. I am finally pleased with this story, and am sending it about seeking publication. It's called Under the Black Flag.
In the meantime, I was working on another of the short stories, one that would feature a newswoman. That became Bad News for a Ghost, but quickly passed the seven thousand word limit for short stories, and over time grew to about eighteen thousand words. It is published now for Kindle on Amazon.
A third story is under way as a novel that I assume will finish at around a hundred thousand words — no illusions of under seven thousand words linger here. It is called Gold Digger, and presents Bart with two missing-person cases to work at the same time. As is usual for Bart, things aren't as simple as they appear, and he is pitted against a retired Russian spy in the old foothill gold mines east of Sacramento. Of course there are burritos, and women, both local and Russian.
For better or worse, Snoopy and I owe all this to Mr. Bulwer-Lytton, for writing that one sentence. As you contemplate the first sentence of your next book, remember what Mao didn't say: A novel of a hundred thousand words begins with one sentence.
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Bad News for a Ghost
Jim Guigli
A Bart Lasiter Mystery
A Sacramento private detective goes underground to help a seductive TV reporter catch a ghost …
For a chance to win a Kindle ebook copy of Bad News for a Ghost, courtesy of the author, use the form below to record your entry.
Thank you Omnimystery News for this opportunity to inflict more Bulwer-Lytton on mystery readers.
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