Writers’ Block Party : Books: Passersby get a crack at writing ‘The Great American Novel’--one sentence at a time.

It was a dark and stormy night. . . . Nah. Scratch that. It was a soft and romantic evening ? Nope. That’s not it, either.

Actually, it was a bright and busy noontime when Mike Hunter, his heart pounding and his hand quivering, sat down Tuesday in the lobby of a Century City high-rise, helping create “The Great American Novel.”

It’s a rambling tale of love, lust, adventure and angst that is being penned one sentence at a time, one author at a time, by budding novelists across the country.

This week the half-filled, thousand-page book is in Los Angeles where Chapter 8 is being written in longhand by passersby in the Century Plaza Towers’ south lobby.

“Book-writing is new to me,” confessed Hunter, a Lakewood sign salesman, quickly scanning the sentences written by those in line ahead of him. “I usually only write sales orders.”

Picking up on previous writers’ theme of a missing treasure, Hunter’s contribution was quick and to the point: “Why was this marvelous object lost to civilization? Why? Why?”

Why the leather-bound book is being toted from city to city is an easier question to answer. It’s a promotional stunt organized by a fountain pen company.

The Montblanc Co. makes those fancy writing instruments favored by doctors and lawyers. Naturally, it is supplying the pens, along with the empty gold-edged book that the novelists are filling.

Company representatives watch carefully as each sentence is scrawled--not to censor the steamy love scenes that occasionally crop up, but to make certain no novelist pockets a $300 pen.

“We’ve lost four so far in the seven cities we’ve visited,” said company publicist Carla Stanmyre. “We almost lost another one yesterday.”

It was Stanmyre who thought up the book-writing idea and accompanies the 16-pound volume from city to city. Her hope, she said, is to have President Bush write the novel’s final sentence sometime next year.

After that, the volume will be submitted to the Guiness Book of World Records as the work in fiction with the most participating authors, she said.

Stanmyre said there are no plans to publish the finished book--although she acknowledged publication would prompt “a great book-signing party.” The first sentence of the book was written by a real estate consultant from Manhattan who penned: “Once upon a time, high up north on top of the mountain, Ben was pondering.”

And it’s been downhill from there. One of the early New York contributors got carried away and wrote a sentence about a cat jumping into a garbage can and the Rockefellers and the hills of West Virginia that totaled 1,005 words.

Writers in Chicago managed to weave a story line about a heroine named Sandy who encountered a pit of alligators and a kidnaping. Contributors from Dallas turned the story into a tale of lovers named Jed and Juliet whose adventures included freezing on an iceberg and getting arrested for appearing on too many game shows.

In Atlanta, authors wrote about the great-granddaughter of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. San Francisco’s contributors wrote of a go-go dancer and an artist and an earthquake.

Stanmyre admits that the story line became “convoluted” in St. Louis, where a 5-year-old boy wrote the shortest sentence: “Oh.” In San Diego, 740 authors dealt with the economy, politics and the environment.

So far, Los Angeles’ chapter seems loaded with equal doses of spiritualism, romance and weirdness.

Former Gov. George Deukmejian set a tone of sorts for the local chapter by writing its first sentence Monday. It read: “The light traffic, allowing him to enjoy the beautiful sight of the California sunshine upon the snowcapped mountains surrounding the City of the Angeles (sic), was interrupted as he got up to turn off the alarm.”

About 70 sentences later, Richard Stegemeier, chairman of Unocal, contributed: “Maybe it was not a cat at all. Maybe his car--a gas guzzler--simply needed a tune-up.”

Forty entries further, actress Susan Ruttan added: “In the pocket he found the small worn stub of a pawn ticket, partly speckled with mysterious brown-red spots.”

Writer No. 4,409, producer Aaron Spelling, contributed the sentence: “Before my eyes, the page vanished, leaving my words, my thoughts, my dreams, breathing for air like fishes without a bowl, fishes without water.”

By Tuesday, the plot was starting to thicken. Make that congeal.

Contributor No. 4,467 said the heroine “was sexy.” Writer No. 4,468 added that “she was a transvestite.” No. 4,469 said “every minute together was passionate.” At least, No. 4,470 concluded, “until they got bored with each other.”

Kelly Donahue, a gift salesman from Angeleno Heights, worked his pet dog and his street into his sentence because “my neighborhood is the oldest in Los Angeles and my dog is the best.”

Law office administrator Anne Younger of West Los Angeles wrote “of passion, truth and transformation.” Tax accountant Scott Charbonneau of Beverly Hills told of a man finding something bigger than himself. Legal secretary Roseann Alvarez of Santa Monica introduced a ghost character to smooth over the confusing entry made by the person ahead of her.

“She was a little old lady who wrote about a vacation she took in 1935,” said a puzzled Alvarez, who returned an hour later to check up on how the “story” had progressed. Alvarez was pleased to see that other writers carried on with her ghost character.

The vacation lady was not the only one confused. Secretary Irene Caligiuri of Los Angeles merely copied the sentence the person ahead of her wrote. She said she thought she was producing a handwriting sample for a graphologist.