Bad Writing Advice

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Supreme_Overlord

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You're all perfect.

I know. This perfection also applies to every word I type. Any other arrangement would create a universe-shredding paradox, and I'm kind of tired of fixing those.

And with that in mind, don't forget you have to send the MS in the industry's standard font.

Which, as everyone knows, is 28-point Matisse ITC.

That's silly. Everyone knows the industry standard is Comic Sans.
 

ArachnePhobia

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Speaking of old vs. new, you may have been taught in typesetting class to make two spaces after you type a period. This is outdated. You actually need to make three spaces now.
 

Netz

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It's also a really good idea to have all the characters' names start with the same letter cos that'll add to the enjoyment of the story. Bonus points if they end with the same letter, too. Here are some to get you started (cos I'm helpful like that):

Kacey, Kailey, Kelly, Kaydy, Katy, Kammy, Keeley, Kerry, Kory, Kyley, Kirby, and Kingsley.
 

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It's also a really good idea to have all the characters' names start with the same letter cos that'll add to the enjoyment of the story. Bonus points if they end with the same letter, too. Here are some to get you started (cos I'm helpful like that):

Kacey, Kailey, Kelly, Kaydy, Katy, Kammy, Keeley, Kerry, Kory, Kyley, Kirby, and Kingsley.

And better if they're all the same length too.
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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Make your made up fantasy names as creative as possible, using combinations of letters the human larynx cannot pronounce, because it'll look more authentically fantasyish that way. And don't forget to use random caps and punctuation! If it doesn't have at least two gutteral stops, an itallicised bit for stress, three Zs, a Q and no vowels, you're doing it wrong.
 

Mr Flibble

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That's silly. Everyone knows the industry standard is Comic Sans.

Actually, once you get published you'll discover the secret of keeping your editor happy is sending it in Wing Dings. In purple. They love that! Automatic deal.

If writing fantasy:

All characters should have an apostrophe in their name, or preferably more than one. Bonus points if the name is actually a normal one without them (Or a Tolkien character's name, shows you are well read in modern fantasy, see) K'ev'in. Ar'a'gor'n

On the subject of Tolkien, yes you absolutely must, MUST, adhere to all the tropes and styles of books published over 50 years ago. This is because all the editors and readers have been preserved in formaldehyde since 1955 and they just want to rehash the golden age. This is what "modern" fantasy is -- exactly like the old fantasy! Anyone who says anything different should be mocked, mercilessly.

Fantasy must include at least one rape scene. Else how can your female MC (or more importantly, her boyfriend, because female MC's are like, stupid) find any motivation?

If you don't have anyone who is secretly son of the king, you just aren't trying

Oh yes, and of course you absolutely MUST MUST MUST spend ten years worldbuilding before you start writing your story. That world has to be perfect, or you can't write word one.
 
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Roxxsmom

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But... but... what about those of us, who like to read romantic subplots... and you know, stuff... :cry:

I was going to say, don't have any romance at all, because that's squishy girl stuff. And anyway, no one ever really falls in love or thinks about sex when they're saving the world. Readers like single-minded, unconflicted protagonists.

But if you have one, make sure the female main character fall in love with a guy who abuses her. And that she spends a lot of time looking at herself in mirrors and thinking about her breasts and her long, shapely legs.

Better yet, make sure there are no female characters at all, except for maybe a tavern wench, a damsel to rescue, or some weeping women in a burned out town (and be sure to spend lots of time describing the horrible things the enemy soldiers did to them).

And always remember, straight, male, white dudes are the default human condition with whom everyone else relates.
 
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eparadysz

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Punctuation is so old-fashioned. Every sentence should end with an emoji -- how else will readers know how to interpret your meaning?
 

Rachel77

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Remember, television and video games have shortened people's attention spans, so readers won't be able to remember all your plot points. Make sure that your characters periodically summarize everything that's happened in the book up until that point.
 

Supreme_Overlord

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Actually, once you get published you'll discover the secret of keeping your editor happy is sending it in Wing Dings. In purple. They love that! Automatic deal.

Will it speed up publication if I begin following this arcane knowledge now? I bet it will. Purple is a royal, kingly color, so it quite obviously carries a connotation of being rich. Agents and editors alike will connect this connotation to one's works and recognize the millions--nay, billions--your, and especially my, golden words will produce.

All characters should have an apostrophe in their name, or preferably more than one. Bonus points if the name is actually a normal one without them (Or a Tolkien character's name, shows you are well read in modern fantasy, see) K'ev'in. Ar'a'gor'n

Corollary: It's always best to just take a Tolkien character's name and change around some of the letters. Add one here, remove one there, change a vowel or two. Everybody will appreciate it.
This applies to all genres.
 

Ari Meermans

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Always kill off that beloved dog or horse your MC is completely devoted to. Bonus points if the horse or dog dies in a self-sacrificing or heroic manner. It adds pathos, and I promise it won't be the only thing your readers ever remember about your book. Promise.
 
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Filigree

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First, thanks to all the non irony-challenged readers.

My contributions: do as little worldbuilding as possible; in fact, brag about how little backstory you've invested in your work, then imply that anyone doing otherwise is a complete fossilized nerd.

When preparing to write your masterpiece, go to writers' workshops and conventions and pester every single published author for 'the secret formula' to getting published. The more years you do this before actually writing, the better.

Choose beta readers who don't read in your genre, because we all know that good writing is good writing no matter what, and nuances of genre shouldn't apply. When the beta readers give you tips about this genre they never read, follow all of those suggestions.

Dig your heels in and never accept revision requests from editors. Your words should stand as they are.

Never bother to research an agent or publisher before you query them; they have an ad in the back of a well-known writers' magazine, doesn't that mean they are legit?

Always write to the lowest-common denominator of average reading ability in your genre.

Self-publish your NaNo novel without editing.

Query before you and your mms are ready, because agents and publishers will never remember you a year from now when you try again.

Don't bother to keep records of where you queried.

Publish before you might be ready, because the quality of your backlist never matters.

When choosing publishers, start with tiny presses that can't market, and work your way up to bigger publishers.

When you self-publish, treat reviews and reader comments as editorial assistance, and put out multiple new editions as you fix those issues.

(Any irony encountered in this post is meant affectionately.)
 

Once!

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Brilliant thread! Kudos to ViridianChick for starting it.

I'd add a few more:

In science fiction, describe any technology in sufficient detail to allow a hobbyist to be able to recreate it in his garden shed using household tools.

All alien races are biologically close enough to homo sapiens to want to have sex with dashing (human) spaceship captains.

All alien races come equipped with reinforced foreheads. This is so that they can slap their foreheads constantly when they realise how dumb they have been for not doing it the human way all these millennia.

To make writing super-duper add more adjectives. To make it even more super-duper, add even more.

People in far away places and in ancient history really did speak with an American accent and say words like "cool", "dude" and "like".

As bad guys get more experienced, they increase in levels. At the end of each chapter have an end of chapter boss bad guy who your enemy needs to defeat.

It's perfectly okay to deviate from your story to have a rant about something that is important to you. Better still, why not turn one of your characters into your own spokesperson? As an added bonus, you could give this character lots of sex.

Revenge is always justified if the crime was heinous enough.
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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Always kill off that beloved dog or horse your MC is completely devoted to. Bonus points if the horse or dog dies in a self-sacrificing or heroic manner. It adds pathos, and I promise it won't be the only thing your readers ever remember about your book. Promise.

Oh god no, don't advise people to do this, or mine won't be original anymore! Because I know no one has ever done this before. *shifty eyes*

Actually, nvm. Mine was a horse and a cat. Totally different :D
 

neandermagnon

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Actually, once you get published you'll discover the secret of keeping your editor happy is sending it in Wing Dings. In purple. They love that! Automatic deal.

If writing fantasy:

All characters should have an apostrophe in their name, or preferably more than one. Bonus points if the name is actually a normal one without them (Or a Tolkien character's name, shows you are well read in modern fantasy, see) K'ev'in. Ar'a'gor'n

And why stop at apostrophes? You can use numbers and punctuation marks to represent sounds that don't exist in English, like the !kung San people, or Arabic names like 3ali and A7mad. But fantasy style, e.g.

Xa!*ruc9c'a3.7xyia3.
 

NRoach

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And why stop at apostrophes? You can use numbers and punctuation marks to represent sounds that don't exist in English, like the !kung San people, or Arabic names like 3ali and A7mad. But fantasy style, e.g.

Xa!*ruc9c'a3.7xyia3.

Hell, to get that super authentic feel, write your dialogue phonetically. For a different language!

"Hell, tú get ðat súpur urþentic fíl, ræt jur dæalog foneticallý."
 

Viridian

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And why stop at apostrophes? You can use numbers and punctuation marks to represent sounds that don't exist in English, like the !kung San people, or Arabic names like 3ali and A7mad. But fantasy style, e.g.

Xa!*ruc9c'a3.7xyia3.
[takes sarcasm hat off] Terry Pratchett did it (a few random characters had names with exclamation points), and so did Eoin Colfer (with a character named N°1). Pissed me off. I mean, it's creative and all, but how the hell am I supposed to pronounce that?

[puts sarcasm hat back on] If a successful, well-known author did something, then you can do it too. If anyone ever tells you something is a bad idea, all you have to do is find a published book where it's been done and shout "THERE! SEE?"
 

Mr Flibble

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If you want to come across as a pro, what you really need to do is insert yourself into the book. Ofc make yourself better looking, with a better sex life. Have everyone fall in love with you -- men, women, chickens. And you are ofc perfect at everything, without a single flaw.

Mary Sues, mark of the pro.

Corollary -- if you make all the bad guys people you know IRL, but just changes the names, no one will ever know!
 

Devil Ledbetter

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TIPS FOR WOMEN'S FICTION

Always start with your character waking up, and thinking about her day, her problems and especially her backstory. Either that, or have her driving somewhere alone while thinking about her backstory. You can add "conflict" to this by making her "late" in either case. Nothing is more interesting than opening with a tardy character playing beat the clock.

Give lots of backstory early. Don't get things moving in the story until you've laid out your character's entire history in excruciating detail. Pay special attention to parts that are not relevant to what happens later in the story. She should be alone with no distractions while she's thinking about her problems at the beginning of the story.

Always show don't tell. That means make the story start on your character's birthday so everyone can be sure exactly how old she is. Have your character fumble with her hair to provide an opportunity to describe its style, color and texture. Better yet, have her stand in front of a mirror and ruminate on her looks. Be sure to make her seem humble by criticizing her own tits for being "too perky" her stomach "ridiculously flat" and her legs "much too long and slim." She should also think her eyes are much too large and such a weird emerald green, and she should absolutely hate her thick, shiny head of "unruly" curls.

When you introduce the love interest, make certain that there is not a shred of doubt he's the love interest. Your character should go weak at the knees, drool and be so distracted by sex fantasies that she can't complete a coherent sentence or walk in a straight line. Extra points if she drops something or knocks something over or falls down and the love interest has to help her.

Every emotion should be shown with a "gut reaction." Match any "gut part" with any "reaction" in these columns.

ORGAN
Stomach
Tummy
Belly
Insides
Gut
Intestines
Tumbly
Heart
Lungs
Kidneys

REACTION
Flipped
Lurched
Did a triple sow-chow
Loop de looped
Tap danced
Clenched
Froze
Thundered
Stuttered
Jitterbugged


Don't worry about characterization. Have your character sigh whenever things don't go her way, it won't make her seem impatient or like a martyr. Have her overreact to small inconveniences and lose her temper a lot to show how "tough" and "sassy" she is. When you're describing other characters from her viewpoint, be extra critical to show how discriminating your character is. Most of her reactions and emotions should be internal, as described in the columns above.

Most important, be sure her name is Kate some permutation of Kate such as Cat, Kaitlin, Katy or Cathloon or Katniss.
 
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King Neptune

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To come up with fun, amusing, terrible advice that sounds almost rational.

You guys are no fun. I'll go sulk somewhere else.

It probably was a mistake to start this, even though those are fine ways to write less than ideally. Why don't you use more modifers?
 

King Neptune

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If you want to come across as a pro, what you really need to do is insert yourself into the book. Ofc make yourself better looking, with a better sex life. Have everyone fall in love with you -- men, women, chickens. And you are ofc perfect at everything, without a single flaw.

Mary Sues, mark of the pro.

Corollary -- if you make all the bad guys people you know IRL, but just changes the names, no one will ever know!

It sure worked for Heinlein.
 

robjvargas

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Wow, those first responses had me wondering if I'd missed something interesting. Nope. Joke.

OK, I'll add one.

  • You never want a sentence so short that readers can get through it in one breath such that it leads them to believe that the point is clear and doesn't need one hundred twenty seven words and a whole page all to itself because long sentences are sophisticated and erudite and makes people feel that they are very smart to be able to get from the beginning to the end of a sentence like that, and don't mind a few brief moments of anoxia to get to the end without drawing another breath.
 

KTC

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Competition? Hell no. Stuff to read.
 
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