The Secret to Bad Writing

People are always asking me “is there any way to shut you up?” The best answer is to give me some beer, but really, the point of this post is how to write…badly.

As a crappy writer, I can tell you that bad writing is not something that any old hack can sit down and do. It takes years of dedication and hard work. In order to write really badly, you don’t want some piece that someone can tell they shouldn’t read in the first paragraph; they should figure that out after wasting 5 minutes.

When people are done reading something I’ve written they know what bad writing really is. They understand that they’ve read something so foul, so cruel, that no man yet has read the complete story…and lived! These are pieces that make you want to throw your computer out of a 9^th story window (not 2^nd, not 5^th, not 7^th, but ninth!). They make you want to stick your head out the window and yell “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

OK, so maybe some people will make do with tossing something other than their computer out of a window…and it may not have to be the ninth floor. But the point is (writer looks lost for a second) the point is...that bad writing doesn’t just happen, you have to work at it.

One of the main things about bad writing is to choose a worthless topic. I find a lot of potentially bad writers who are stymied because they want to create an anti-magnum opus. If it is not the “War and Peace” of the trash heap they’re not satisfied.

What they need to understand is that a brain destroyed a little bit at a time is just as dead as one that’s been flash fried. True dreck cannot just jump out onto the keyboard, instead it requires editing. If you never write anything, then you have nothing to edit so blast away! If it doesn’t suck at first have faith – when you’re done editing it will.

In my next post, I’ll go over some crappy examples that make no sense…stay tuned!

technorati: writing, inept, advice