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.

Ahhh... Those Enchanting Summer Mornings... Almost...

There's something about waking up on a summer morning to the sound of the birds singing outside my window and I hear the faintest swoosh of wind that promises a green, lush day and I feel a smile spreading across my face before I open my eyes in a state of sleepy utopia.

This morning I was startled awake to the bong of a bird that flew into my window because it thought the reflection of the sky it saw in the glass was real.

Well, you know me; I can't let an interesting analogy like that go untouched. I was reflecting on it this morning and started to wonder if this will be a singing bird day or a bird bonging day. Unfortunately, I foresee a potential train wreck in my near future regardless of my efforts to avert it and despite this keep humming and singing songs in my head - am I trying to induce some sort of delusional attitude here or am I simply being optimistic? 

And what's wrong with being optimistic anyway? If I'm hopeful about my life one of two things will happen. 1. My expectations will be fulfilled and my hope was for good cause. OR 2. My expectations will not be filled, but I felt positive and hopeful before they went downhill and I prevented a lot of needless worrying and grief - up until the last minute anyway. Either way I see it hope is a win-win situation.

Besides, I've noticed from personal observation there are more birds singing in the mornings than there are birds determined to maim themselves on my windows.