Let's Put Writing in Perspective

Found in Opinion

Dec. 2011

Gene Budig

By Gene A. Budig and Alan Heaps

For 30 years, the English department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a competition “to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.”

Here are the winning entries from 2010 and 2011, respectively:

“For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss — a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.” (Molly Ringle of Seattle, Wash.)

“Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.” (Sue Fondrie of Oshkosh, Wis.)

These sentences are wonderfully creative and very funny (and take great skill to write), but good writing is a serious issue. Writing is increasingly the way we communicate both in our professional and personal lives. Without good writing we are all handicapped.

In its groundbreaking 2003 report, The Neglected “R”: The Need for a Writing Revolution, the National Commission on Writing stated that “writing sustains American life and popular culture.” That is even truer today than it was a decade ago.

Let’s put writing in perspective. Documents written centuries ago still have a profound impact on our lives: Our politics are shaped by the Constitution; our religious beliefs by the bible and the Koran; our arts and culture by Austen, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Sophocles.

The printing press, developed in the 15th century, democratized information and was a driving force in the scientific, social and political revolutions that reshaped our world. Technology is now spurring another writing revolution and the sheer quantity generated is staggering: There are an estimated 30 billion emails and 50 million tweets daily.

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