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/lit/ - Literature

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18070088 No.18070088 [Reply] [Original]

Give me examples of terrible writing, bonus points if you explain why it's bad.

>> No.18070099
File: 9 KB, 225x224, Nick Land.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18070099

>>18070088
>Wrong.

>When you consider the hyperpraxis neostrategies of Uncle Nick's subsubversive econocapital the exoesoteric hypertechnical capital ontotime sublaunches into sinoChinese exopraxis.

>Hyperovercapital redeterritorialititiziozaneozation launcholaunches neoovertime nousonoumenal pragmapraxis.

>> No.18070271

>Light poured out of the windows.

Need I explain why this is bad?

>> No.18070838

>>18070271
Go on

>> No.18071254

>>18070088
>the fact that

>> No.18071348

>Give me examples of terrible writing, bonus points if you explain why it's bad.
It's bad

>> No.18071367

>>18070271
Plottwist: its a sci fi novel where giant portals in space are called windows.

>> No.18071440
File: 102 KB, 526x360, autism_awareness.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071440

Easy one. Dude would be an ace in writing technical handbooks, though.

>> No.18071469

Can someone explain why stuff like
>In this section, I will discuss
>Next, I will discuss
>Now I will explain
is generally considered amateur

>> No.18071471

>>18071440
>color hexcodes
holy autismo

>> No.18071496

>>18071469
I use the second one in my intros, though never "discuss". There must be a more precise word for whatever you're doing in that essay. If you're using these in the body of your essay, it's redundant.

>> No.18071519

>>18071469
in academic writing it's okay to lay out the way in which you want to present your thesis or research with these expressions. It's even expected, I'd say.

>> No.18071547
File: 1.30 MB, 1576x590, Karissa Nagle.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071547

Just read the free previews to self published books.

>> No.18071565
File: 1.27 MB, 1407x675, Lost Times p1 Stephen Redmond-Weigant.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071565

>>18071547
but the thing is, people who don't read a lot all write fiction the exact the same way. They use the same similes and metaphors, make the same stylistic choices, use the same cliches. Sure the plot is different and the characters are different but the prose is exactly the same.

>> No.18071580
File: 1.53 MB, 1407x675, Lost Times p2 Stephen Redmond-Weigant.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071580

>>18071565

>> No.18071585

>>18070088
you just know. Ultimately confidence is the greatest factor in something being good, and that applies to everything.

>> No.18071592
File: 1.19 MB, 1407x675, Lost Times p3 Stephen Redmond-Weigant.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071592

>>18071580

>> No.18071601
File: 1.20 MB, 946x1045, Take a Walk with Me Through Hell by Christopher Shaw.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071601

>> No.18071612
File: 1.12 MB, 1664x578, The People in My Dreams Book 21 to 23 by Denise Pinch.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071612

>> No.18071641
File: 1.42 MB, 1214x1124, Amnesiacs by Ifedayo Adigwe Akintomide.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071641

>> No.18071643

>>18071469
>Arouse the seeming deadly creature to that standard of joy and gladness which should mark his noble path! Endow him with the dewdrops of affection; cast from him the pangs of the dull past, and stamp them for ever beneath the waves of troubled waters; brighten his life as thou wouldst that of a faded flower; and when the hottest ray of that heavenly orb shall shoot its cheerful charge against the window panes of Dunfern Mansion, the worthy owner can receive it with true and profound thankfulness. Three weeks had scarcely passed ere Sir John was made the recipient of another invitation to Dilworth Castle. This second effusion of cordiality required neither anxious thought nor prolonged decision how to act, knowing as he did that it would again serve to bring his present thoughts into practice by affording him another opportunity of sharing in the loving looks of one for whom he feared there dwelt a strong inclination on his part to advance his affection.

There's a point in which one reach too much description, too much metaphor which serves for no purpose whatsoever. It's an attempt of the literary wannabe to force metaphor and similes which will play no role in the story, and make of a very straight-forward matter into paragraphs of adjectives.

Whether prose is bad or good, we need to judge it by the time standards. Some early prose work by be dreadfully overwritten, but it might have been revolutionary by then and a work without which contemporary literature would not have occurred.

Now see this line
>the hottest ray of that heavenly orb shall shoot its cheerful charge against the window panes

The house is not struck just by sunrays, but "the hottest ray". The sun it's not just the plain old sun, but the "heavenly orb", and it doesn't just make the house warmer, but it "shoots its cheerful charge".

Content is everything. It's ok to describe how the morning "woke" the mansion to begin a chapter, but it's dreadful to describe something so commonplace filled with unnecessary prose that goes round and round without getting to the point (*).

It was written in the novel Irene Iddlsigh in 1897. The novel itself as a generic plot of victorian novels of the kind of Austen's, which we have seen plenty of a century before this book was published.
Now, Austen's is one of the rare cases where these plots it can be pulled of, because of the subtle criticism of victorian manners and masterful prose.
Back to Irene Iddlesigh, the novel is all in all the most generic kind of victorian romance. In The Importance of Being Ernest, Wilde (through some female character I don't remember) jokes on how every female should write a three-volume romance, Irene Iddlesigh is the living example of that joke.


(*) Unnecesary description can be done ironically, and it can be very well pulled off when the irony it's obvious. An example of this is the novel Mezzanine of Nicholson Baker

>> No.18071651

>>18071469
It's considered to be amateur. You will find it often in the intro of academic books and papers.

>> No.18071664
File: 973 KB, 1914x669, DemonCradle by Dudley Clarence Sturgis IV.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18071664

>> No.18071704

>>18071643
>Irene Iddlsigh
I remember several years ago /lit/ told me about this book. It's like the Victorian equivalent of Twilight.

>> No.18071724

>>18071612
My Lord...

>> No.18071836

>>18071612
is this from Ulysses?

>> No.18072010

>>18071440
This is actually pretty unique. I'm kinda interested

>> No.18072071

>>18071601
I think this is bait

>> No.18072081

>>18071440
Ulillillia?

>> No.18072094

>>18071612
This was written by an AI

>> No.18072105

>>18071440
but this is good and funny

>> No.18072108
File: 42 KB, 300x500, 51YfZjUWHeL.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072108

>> No.18072111

>>18071612
thank you for introducing me to Denice Pinch

>> No.18072168

>>18072010
>>18072081
yeah it's Ulillillia's Legend Of The Ten Elemental Masters. Good shit.

>>18072105
it is but not intentional, that's why it's terrible writing the way OP meant.

>> No.18072176

>>18071547
>let me tell you something about myself
i fucking hate that cliche in amateur writing. It's the worst.

>> No.18072206

>>18072168
of course it's intentional. You're the autist for not recognizing it.

>> No.18072219
File: 160 KB, 1387x186, tryhard.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072219

>>18070088
Fresh from the /v/ sewage drains.

>> No.18072252

>>18072219
This reads like Pynchon

>> No.18072254
File: 694 KB, 991x675, The Return of Mephistopheles World War III by Demetrios Anagnostopoulos.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072254

>>18071612
>The Royal Egyptian Epiphany Egyptian Great Pyramid boat or the Royal Egyptian Epiphany Egyptian Great Pyramid ship
it's very very important we know that it's maybe a boat or maybe a ship. But what I want to know is does it have enough space for her twelve husbands who are all doctors?

>> No.18072255
File: 132 KB, 1386x162, yuckwheat.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072255

>>18072219
I hate Qud's writing. it's pretentious and flowery beyond anything I've ever read

>> No.18072270

>>18072219
shit
>>18072255
actually good

>> No.18072274
File: 974 KB, 676x588, The LGH Part 1 The Rise of the Plains.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072274

>> No.18072286
File: 112 KB, 1000x750, Ulillillia.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072286

>>18072206
bruh you wanna tell me the guy in pic related takes the piss on us with intentionally writing like that? I don't think so.

>> No.18072288
File: 370 KB, 1149x676, Goodnight Kiss Adrian Johnson.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072288

this is a personal favorite of mine. For some reason the free book preview was the entire book. I like how the phone lines are somehow connected to the wireless Kindle.

>> No.18072298

>>18072274
I like this, this character seems extremely annoying but that doesn't make it bad writing, it evokes an emotion within me and that is the purpose of /lit/erature

>> No.18072309

>>18072288
Why did his kindle turn off?

>> No.18072328

>>18072254
>mothman
>named because of his mothlike features

how can anyone compete with this astute prose, bros?

>> No.18072334
File: 1.59 MB, 1646x1041, The Gadget Teenager by Nelson Amador.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072334

>read Blood Meridian
>everyone thinks it's a work of genius
>notice McCarthy doesn't use punctuation
>I can do that

>> No.18072360
File: 438 KB, 753x597, Menzuo SW Legend of the Blue Diamond.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072360

>>18072328
This one has an astuteness level of over nine thousand.

>> No.18072395
File: 655 KB, 640x266, evans.webm [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072395

>>18072334
>they didn't not realize that a sign "Sharpe ditch with needles do not enter"
>then all of a sudden there was a huge explosion and Matt's body got blown up "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" Matts creamed and his body was destroyed and his legs were broken
>and his body was in band aids
>"yo man I can't believe Matt's body got destroyed that is just strange"

>> No.18072400

An hour later, her stomach began to cramp so badly that she could not go on. She spent the rest of that day retching up green slime. If I stay here, I will die. I may be dying now. Would the horse god of the Dothraki part the grass and claim her for his starry khalasar, so she might ride the nightlands with Khal Drogo? In Westeros the dead of House Targaryen were given to the flames, but who would light her pyre here? My flesh will feed the wolves and carrion crows, she thought sadly, and worms will burrow through my womb. Her eyes went back to Dragonstone. It looked smaller. She could see smoke rising from its wind-carved summit, miles away. Drogon has returned from hunting.

Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water. When she closed her eyes at last, Dany did not know whether she would be strong enough to open them again.

She dreamt of her dead brother.

>> No.18072407
File: 2.17 MB, 1148x1400, the cools brothers.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072407

>> No.18072455

>>18072400
but that's not bad writing. Writing about shit =/= shitty writing.

>> No.18072886
File: 50 KB, 753x698, normalconvo.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18072886

>obscures obvious plot hole and contradiction by making the old man into some Nietzsche-sounding EpIC manly man!

>author doesn't use punctuation, constantly bringing attention to its absence and not in the story itself

>> No.18073030

>>18071651
What do I replace it with?

>> No.18073091
File: 55 KB, 1075x943, AO3.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18073091

I sometimes browse AO3's "Recent" section for the unintentional comedy and found this the other day.
You can actually learn quite a bit about writing by reading really amateurish fanfiction critically.
I skimmed a bit further and the whole story is written like this. The writing style gives me twinges of secondhand embarrassment because I used to write a lot like this and thought I was really good because of it.
If you try to write something that reads like the first chapter of Lolita all the time you're just going to fall flat on your face. A jarring writing style can work well if you contrast it with something else but if your whole story is jarring nobody is going to want to read it.
The goal of writing a story isn't to create a sequence of text that shows how smart you are, the goal of writing a story is to tell a story.
This author obviously made a lot of mistakes throughout (the first one arguably being writing Harry Potter fanfiction) but even if you make a ton of mistakes you can still tell a good story as long as your focus is on making something that's enjoyable to read.

>> No.18073097

>>18073030
Nothing, just dive into the topic.

>> No.18073136

>>18070271
Light does pour though under certain conditions, for example through swaying foliage outside the window when there is dust slowly moving in the air inside the window, it quite literally looks like it is pouring

>> No.18073289

>>18073091
The beginning is a good hook, it's obviously a problem if it's like that the whole time, but if it gets into the meat of the story right after I could enjoy this

>> No.18073419

>>18072108
pls explain

>> No.18073443

>>18070088
>Give me examples of terrible writing

Anything by Murakami.

>> No.18073454

>>18071440
>an ace in writing technical handbooks

Why do you think this? Just because he included some numbers and letters he Googled up from the Internet?

>> No.18073560

>>18073454
was meant only half-serious, anon, take a joke. he does care about very concrete details, you have to give him that, though.

>> No.18073598

>>18071547
Kill it with Lucifer's fire.

>> No.18073696

>>18071547
It's weird that you would go to the trouble to highlight mistakes but only like one out of every three.

>> No.18073891

>>18070271
>*Light fucked its way out of the building, as if the windows were an open invitation to impregnate the universe with electromagnetic radiation.

Is this better?

>> No.18073976
File: 13 KB, 326x326, 1617327507501.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18073976

>>18071664
>Zeanith Fairwind CloudCatcher the Fourth

>> No.18073984

>>18072252
No it doesn't

>> No.18073990

>>18070088
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

>> No.18074009

>>18070088
go pick up any japanese light 'novel' or web 'novel'

>> No.18074107

>>18072886
>Cormac McCarthy makes me mad for reasons I can't quite explain because I am a brainlet and 90% of what he writes passes over my head with an audible woosh

I don't blame you, I imagine if I were somebody who never read anything more complex than middle grade novels about wizards Cormac McCarthy's writing would make me confused and angry too

>> No.18074116
File: 1.78 MB, 350x255, 1618669567004.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18074116

>>18073891

>> No.18075743
File: 2.21 MB, 3127x2479, light novels are a joke.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18075743

>>18074009

>> No.18075767
File: 748 KB, 844x597, Venom Blades 2 Blood Tide by Richard Slade.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18075767

>> No.18075775
File: 2.69 MB, 760x410, japanese acting.webm [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18075775

>>18075743
It's a different culture. It's just as complex and nuanced and deep as anything the west has produced. You don't understand.

>> No.18075778

>>18071612
This is good.

>> No.18075801

>>18072286
how is he twisting his neck that far

>> No.18075803
File: 115 KB, 450x443, 1543533411160.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18075803

>>18075743
>indentations after every sentence instead of actual paragraphs
Even the "good" LNs like Monogatari do this. The entire genre exists for the benefit of people too retarded to process more than three lines of text at a time. It's probably the most grating style of writing I've ever read.

>> No.18075861

>>18071440
>see appendix 5

>> No.18075879

>>18072274
It was good until the gore part with a rin on (more like marathon on) sentence

>> No.18075883

>>18071440
This is good

>> No.18075895

>>18072274
>what have we got here, chief?
>well it appears as though this man gouged his own eyes out with the largest knife in his kitchen
>and then he burned his own house down
>an accident?
>all evidence leads back to the man himself
>case closed, boys.

>> No.18075922

>>18070088
The Tay Bridge Disaster is basically the Room of poetry.

>> No.18076135

>>18075922
nobody cares about your stupid opinions

>> No.18076142

>>18076135
You clearly did, bug. I do not deserve these insults from incels like you.

>> No.18076144

>>18076135
It isn’t even me, anon.

>> No.18076155

>>18072886
>some Nietzsche-sounding EpIC manly man
Read Nietzsche you turd

>> No.18076159

>>18076144
OH MY GOD NO ONE CARES

>> No.18076161

>>18076144
Quit pretending to be me. I did not go through years of dilations to be misgendered like this!

>> No.18076166

>>18070088
Does it have to be from a book? Because the TV show black lightning has some terrible writing.

>> No.18076171

"I am fragile but not that fragile"

>> No.18076870

>>18073454
You ever read a technical book? It's just compilation of numbers sourced from other technical books. I have a textbook taught at MIT where the author thanks Wikipedia in the prologue for helping him with research

>> No.18077026

>>18073891
Sounds like the title of a Godspeed You! album.

>> No.18077113

>>18075775
no

>> No.18078456
File: 1.51 MB, 1237x702, Orbbelgguren Series Book VII Qu'ellar B'Nossta by Stephen Chistiansen.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18078456

>> No.18078486

>>18078456
Is is possible to write fantasy without being this cringe? Or does fantasy as a whole automatically bring the quality of your writing down several notches?

>> No.18078769
File: 1.04 MB, 1086x608, Chrona Luna - The Time of the Werewolf by Sakura Ambition Chronicle.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18078769

>>18078486
I think it's possible if you actually have something important to say thematically. But most people just want to write sword fights.

>> No.18079954
File: 32 KB, 600x655, c2d.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18079954

>>18074107
>I don't blame you, I imagine if I were somebody who never read anything more complex than middle grade novels about wizards Cormac McCarthy's writing would make me confused and angry too

>> No.18079985

>>18070088
Zola. Because it's shit.

>> No.18080014

>>18078456
all female should be written this way

>> No.18080050

>>18071469
bro just explain it