For four decades, an English professor at San Jose State University has run a fiction contest for a single opening sentence to "the worst of all possible novels." He has decided to retire the contest.

If you’ve got a story to tell, tell the story. No need to dress it up in a tutu. Many moons ago, my late friend John Van Doorn strolled ‘round the newsroom flashing a $5 bill, promising it to whoever ...

All advice is suspect. I'm not suggesting you break all the so-called rules of creativity you've collected. Only that every tip can be counteracted with its opposite. And some advice is just plain bad ...

Although she hated the acrid taste and bite of the cigarette she had just lighted, the woman with tousled gray hair, narrowed eyes and a sneer of a mouth sauntered over to the tired-looking man at the ...

A modest but effective example of the sort of thing Eliot had in mind is the annual Bad Writing Contest sponsored by the scholarly journal Philosophy and Literature. Previous winners have included the ...