Since I just took a look at some of the 2004 Bulwer-Lytton contest winners (and laughed loud and long) I wanted to emphasize one point about what seems to be a bad-writing theme in the winners.  They sentences almost invariably wander -- the extra thoughts are gratuitous and irrelevant.  If they weren't being written for humor value (where they obviously succeed) it would be distracting and annoying to read all the extra phrases piled on to offer meaningless, or at best, cliched metaphors (broken eggs for a broken marriage, for eg.).  

I am reminded of a sculptor's (Michelangelo, perhaps? Can't remember.) description of sculpting.  I'm paraphrasing here, but it's something like: "I just look at a block of marble and carve away whatever isn't supposed to be in the statue."  If one were going to turn those sentences into good sentences they would need a lot more carving. . .