TOP TEN SIGNS YOUR NOVEL WILL NOT WIN A PEN/FAULKNER AWARD

Top Ten Signs Your Novel will not Win a PEN/Faulkner Award

10. Your theme: Bitch better have my money

9. Your plot: Man vs Cake

8. Main character: Perry Hotter

7. Wrote two beginnings and a middle, but no end

6. You follow a maverick policeman who easily avenges his partner's murder with careful investigation and proper case handling

5. Published exclusively on Bazooka gum wrappers

4. Final chapter concludes with a plea for all mankind to embrace penis enlargement

3. Chapter one: "Rollin' in my five-point-oh." Chapter two: "Got my ragtop down so my hair can blow."

2. You illustrate man's inhumanity to Aimee Mann

And the number one sign your novel will not win a PEN/Faulkner Award...

1. You submit ten single-line synopses and not one is funny

-Jason Rohrblogger
(9/15/08)

And the alternates...

You craft a sequel to Genesis
It's the fictionalized memoir of a Nigerian Internet banker
You attempt to explain how Stella got her back groove