A motivation thread.

[ThinkAnarchy]

One of my favorite past times when trying to learn a new skill is finding examples of that skill being used poorly. When I see it being used poorly, it makes me think I'm more capable than most in accomplishing my current goals.

Here is a link to some funny examples of bad writing I came across while researching how best to write the book idea's I have. I already know I will need someone trust worthy to fix my grammatical errors.

Last night I read a short story in a contemporary literature textbook that read like this: (This is simply an imitation of what I read.)

John walked up to the counter and said, "How much for a loaf of bread?"

"2.99," the clerk said.

"I don't know if I can afford $2.99," John said as he continued to say, "That seems a bit steep for some baked flour."

"Well that's the price my manager has set," the clerk said.

"I don't care what your manager says, I'm not paying those prices," John said as he slammed his fist on the counter.

The clerk said, "That is uncalled for sir, I'm calling the police."

Blah, blah, blah.

He said, she said. It makes my brain hurt. I understand a lot of people like it better than, "he mused," or some other variation, but we can deduce who said what if the conversation flows naturally and the writer shows who is speaking through action.

This article is what made we want to post this thread.
http://theeditorsblog.net/2011/11/03/bad-dialogue-bad-bad-dialogue/

I'm curious what examples others have found that are piss poor examples of what not to do in a given field.

[Melmoth]

hmmm. fanfiction.net? I say that but I am often on it.

Just to defend the 'he said, she said, blah blah blah' style of writing a little, sometimes that works amazingly well depending on the story/narrator that you're writing. It depends on content as much as personal preference. Raymond Carver, as an example, never deviates from the "John said, Sue said, John said," pattern and he very seldom uses pronouns, so you often get words and names awkwardly repeated close together. If you were to try and write his stories any other way, they simply wouldn't work. Carver is about making mundane reality (and nothing but mundane reality) into something deeply weird and alien; he tends to do this by giving his characters extremely limited, almost autistic perspectives, and the stilted language is part of that. Also works well on child narrators and psychopathic narrators, I think. Depending on the content it can either come across as innocent and simplistic (this happened. then this. then something else, and then something else), or cold and indifferent, or sometimes an unsettling mix of the two.

[DeterminedJuliet]

There's a whole website devoted to web pages that are horribly designed.
Web Pages that Suck

[Stevil]

I especially love the bit

as he continued to say...

[DeterminedJuliet]

I especially love the bit

as he continued to say...

Beyond being awkwardly phrased, I'm pretty sure that's not even grammatically correct.

[Hector Valdez]

How to Write Well

Well written writing brings together specific words and properly formatted text. For example, to speak with an affectation that can be seen as a bit long winded will probably amount to an annoyance of the reader. Get to the point, dammt.

Nouns and Verbs

A precise description has more energy than a general descriptioin. A mange-covered labrador is more interesting than a dog. Ameteur writers also use the verb "to be", too much. Verbs denote action, not states. Say that the man tussled her disheveled lockes, not, he was tussling her disheveled lockes.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Nouns and verbs are the meat and potatoes of language, but adjectives and adverbs are the herbs and spices. A twisted metal door blew out from smoky pressure, is far more interesting than, The door exploded.

What Else?

Learn more words. As many as you can. Specificity and Variety is the key to good writing. Good grammar doesn't hurt, too.

_________________________
Composed/Posted with WYSIWYG BBCode Editor

[ThinkAnarchy]

I especially love the bit

as he continued to say...

Beyond being awkwardly phrased, I'm pretty sure that's not even grammatically correct.

I wasn't attempting to be accurate, but the short story I read last night had "said" multiple times, one after the other.. At one point in the story the author used "said" or another form of it, twice in one sentence. This was in a textbook and I was mortified.

It isn't worth my time to flip through the book and find the story for an exact quote. Most of what was in there is what I would consider junk, at least from the bit my wife and I randomly flipped too.

[DeterminedJuliet]

A precise description has more energy than a general descriptioin. A mange-covered labrador is more interesting than a dog. Ameteur writers also use the verb "to be", too much. Verbs denote action, not states. Say that the man tussled her disheveled lockes, not, he was tussling her disheveled lockes.

Use of passive voice. It's funny, once you get used to looking for it, it jumps right out at you. I'm sure I'd cringe now if I went back and looked at some of my first year essays. I still get sloppy with verb-tense agreement sometimes, but I'm getting better.

As to getting to the point, in technical writing the "ideal" sentence is 10-20 words long. I found it tricky to go from academic writing (which tends to meander a bit) to writing so concisely, but it's another thing I'm working on.

I'm a dork and I find this stuff interesting, but everyone else can feel free to get the thread back on its original topic. 

[ThinkAnarchy]

A precise description has more energy than a general descriptioin. A mange-covered labrador is more interesting than a dog. Ameteur writers also use the verb "to be", too much. Verbs denote action, not states. Say that the man tussled her disheveled lockes, not, he was tussling her disheveled lockes.

Use of passive voice. It's funny, once you get used to looking for it, it jumps right out at you. I'm sure I'd cringe now if I went back and looked at some of my first year essays. I still get sloppy with verb-tense agreement sometimes, but I'm getting better.

As to getting to the point, in technical writing the "ideal" sentence is 10-20 words long. I found it tricky to go from academic writing (which tends to meander a bit) to writing so concisely, but it's another thing I'm working on.

I'm a dork and I find this stuff interesting, but everyone else can feel free to get the thread back on its original topic. 

I have a really difficult time with active voice. I know things should be written that way, but I always use passive voice naturally. Sometimes I will sit staring trying to determine which I used for the past few sentences.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I think the reason people use passive voice a lot is because we do tend to think of things that way. Things are always "being" to us and it can come out in our writing. I've found that a good way of spotting passive voice is that it tends to "take longer." If you have a sentence that you're unsure about, ask "is there a shorter way I could say this exact thing?" If you can, chances are you're using passive voice or some other kind of redundant phrasing.