Writing Badly Part Three: Boring Your Reader

I know it's taken a while to get to the next segment on our writing badly series and I apologize to all the budding new authors out there who needed some more direction on how to make their novel really stink, but I usually don't post unless I'm unusually ill and bored out of my mind and it's taken awhile for my bad health to take it's toll this time. I guess I'm just incurably optimistic.

Today I want to talk about repetition. This is the best way to bore your reader. There are several methods you can use:

1. Have your character think something, say what they thought, then think about what they said.

2. Tell us what's about to happen, show it to us, then tell us what just happened

3. Write a scene from one character's perspective, switch characters and show the exact same scene again from that character's perspective - trust me on this one, it will bring your story to a dead stand still.

As a bonus - make a scene extra boring in these ways:

1. Use as many passive sentences as you possibly can.

2. Tell us everything, show us nothing.

3. Assume your reader is stupid and state the obvious.

4. Interrupt any action that might be taking place. You can do this by describing something or expressing someone's thoughts, or by putting dialog where it shouldn't be - get creative! There are many ways to interrupt action.

Any of these methods are guaranteed to make your story dry as toast. Try them all and you won't have any readers at all! Just think of the possibilities!

Melodrama

Okay folks, today we will be continuing our how to write badly series by discussing how to make your book melodramatic! Nothing makes bad drama like good melodrama. We'll be touching on some basics here and give some simple, easy to understand examples - and you can think up some of your own!

1. Use lots and lots of adverbs. Modify those verbs! It will give everything a wonderfully overdone feel - try it! For extra points - modify your adjectives and for extra, extra, really, really high melodrama - modify your adverbs.

Examples:
Okay melodrama:
Annette slowly lowered her long, lush, eyelashes and shivered slightly. 

Better melodrama:
Annette slowly lowered her very long, very lush eyelashes and shivered slightly.

Best melodrama:
Annette really slowly lowered her very long, very lush eyelashes and shivered ever so slightly.

Another good way to accomplish melodrama is to tell us what a character is feeling instead of showing us what they are feeling.

Example:
Good melodrama:
Jerry was stunned.

Bad melodrama:
Jerry's eyes widened.

2. Bad dialogue. This one is easy. All you have to do is write like no person on earth talks. Using lots of repetition is a good thing too.

Example:
"I do not want you to go to the bar tonight."
"Why do not  you want me to go to the bar tonight?"
"The Bailey brothers are really mischievous and will want to toilet paper the Moore's when they are finished drinking lots of beer."
"The Bailey brothers will want to toilet paper the Moore's after they are finished drinking lots of beer? Will not that make them sick and then will not they get in trouble if they are caught?"
"Yes, that will make them sick and they will get caught, thankfully."

This could go on and on completely turning off the reader. It's a guaranteed way to get the reader to put down your book which you didn't want them to read anyway. Notice, the nice little touch at the end of this exchange - thankfully. This is a word used a lot in writing that adds a great deal of melodrama - and not just in dialogue either! Thankfully, it's an adverb that can be used in regular sentences anywhere! That's the beautiful thing about that word. No one actually uses it - people don't say it or think it - they only write it - which makes it the perfect word for melodrama.

3. Use lot's of big words no one understands.
Example:
Jasmine's pulchritude was glorious to behold.

4. Use lots of italics, bold letters, CAPITAL LETTERS, and lot's and lot's of exclamation points!!!!! And. Don't. Forget. Putting. A. Period. After. Each. Word. Be sure to take full advantage of our modern day technology - the sky's the limit with these devices - it's so easy to scroll and click!

The rest is up to you! Spend some time thinking of other ways you can create melodrama - it's fun! I hope this will inspire young, aspiring writers out there everywhere to write some truly heinous works of fiction. Apparently, the public hasn't grown very tired of it yet since it inexplicably continues to be published on. a. Regular. Basis. - let's be sure to fill the demand out there - so get cracking!!!!!

Bad Writing: A Basic How To Guide

I've decided to put together a bad writing- how to- guide for those who want to write truly terrible books. There seems to be a big hole in the market for this. If you look at the writing section of the library or bookstore or look online there are myriads of authors covering writing well - but no one seems to cover writing terribly. So I thought it was high time I did something about this and start a series of posts on how to make lots of writing mistakes and have a final product that is as badly crafted as anyone could wish.

First, let's discuss how to make the main character arrogant and therefor unlikeable. Everyone knows that in good writing the main character is likable so for our purposes making the main character unlikeable will be a big goal.

Arrogant is easy to achieve. If written in first person have lots of paragraphs and sentences start with the word ' I '. Also be sure to include the words, 'clearly', 'obviously', and 'I knew'. These last three work no mater what point of view your book is written in. Check your manuscript - is the main character using these words a lot? If so - congratulations! you're main character is arrogant! You did it! Pat yourself on the back.

Here are some examples:

The man was wearing a navy blue pin striped suit and a red tie, he was clearly trying to make a power statement and it would have worked if it hadn't been for the orange socks.

She was obviously upset. Tears were running down her cheeks.

Penelope knew Sharon was the kind of person who would call in sick to get out of inventory.

Note: Taken by themselves they seem fairly tepid, but be sure to multiply them so they are sprinkled throughout your work. Also notice the words are pointing out things the reader can work out for themselves - extra bonus points if you did that in your manuscript!

Stay tuned: Next time we will discuss how to make your manuscript melodramatic! Oh boy!

The Perils of Looking through Your Eyelashes

I've been working on it for a few minutes now. No matter how hard I try it does not work. Moving my eyes this way and that till I'm crossed eyed makes no difference. It's impossible to look through my eye lashes.

Now you would have thought a scientific study would have been done long before this about this serious matter. What will all the writers of romance do without this handy looking-at-someone-without-looking-like-you're-looking-at-them device? How many books in the genre will be effected by this astonishing bit of news?

Now I have to admit, if a person has downward sloping eyelashes or falsies for that matter this might be achievable. Which makes me wonder why such things are required to be cast as the romantic interest in a romance novel.

Can't people with upward sloping eyelashes fall in love? What kind of prejudice is this? People whose eyelashes slope up are not romantically inclined??? Isn't it time we shine a bright light on this issue? Isn't it time to make a stand and say "Hey! My eyelashes slope upward and I still fell in love!"

I just want to voice my outrage that this issue has been completely ignored by the press. Everyone just reads their romance novels and blindly ignores the perils of trying to look through eyelashes! I was going cross eyed just trying it. There could be naive young girls all over the country trying this out on unsuspecting males who will be frightened out of their wits when they call 911 to report girls having siezures. 911 could become flooded with calls - real emergencies could go unattended - disaster could ensue.

What is needed here is a public awareness campaign. People could be analyzed, their eye lash type could be determined and they could be approved or rejected for looking through their eyelashes and those who do not qualify could be provided counseling to correct the misconception that the ability to look through one's eyelashes is crucial to flirting, courtship and marriage.