Bad Writing

[WICKES]

Can you think of any passages of writing that you consider really awful? Anything- from Barbara Cartland to Dickens, from local newspaper articles to high brow novels.

[Pecksie]

Yes, I have an example from a book I finished this week, Ha Jin's "Waiting". It is an example of bad dialogue from cover to cover, besides featuring a rape scene that borders on the ridiculous.

[Bakiryu]

The Whole of Great Expectations. Dickens is such a disappointment :(

[WICKES]

Yes, I have an example from a book I finished this week, Ha Jin's "Waiting". It is an example of bad dialogue from cover to cover, besides featuring a rape scene that borders on the ridiculous.

Could you quote the worst bit Pecksie? The bit that really made you think "christ, how did this get published"?

[Pecksie]

Could you quote the worst bit Pecksie? The bit that really made you think "christ, how did this get published"?

OK! This is from the rape scene:

"He grabbed her hair and pulled her head around. She had never expected that the male organ could be so large; his was like a donkey's and terrified her.
'See how big my **** is,' he said, panting. 'It's like a rolling pin, no, it's a little mortar'.
'Please, don't! Don't do this to me! Oh ---'
He pushed her face down on the bed. 'Shut up! My **** is designed to blast into an old virgin like you'. (...)

--- From a winner of the National Book Award

[WICKES]

OK! This is from the rape scene:

"He grabbed her hair and pulled her head around. She had never expected that the male organ could be so large; his was like a donkey's and terrified her.
'See how big my **** is,' he said, panting. 'It's like a rolling pin, no, it's a little mortar'.
'Please, don't! Don't do this to me! Oh ---'
He pushed her face down on the bed. 'Shut up! My **** is designed to blast into an old virgin like you'. (...)

--- From a winner of the National Book Award


:lol: Thanks. It takes really bad writing to make something as revolting as rape seem almost funny..."it's like a rolling pin, no, it's a little mortar"! Can you imagine someone saying that in such a situation?!

[wessexgirl]

The Da Vinci Code, I only read a couple of chapters, but the writing was dire.

[PeterL]

Endymion by Dan Simmons is an excellent example of how not to write a novel.

[Chester]

I don't know if anybody's interested in examples of bad unpublished writing, but every year English teachers from across Canada submit their collections of bad analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These were the winners from a couple years ago:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p. m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p. m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

[dramasnot6]

:lol: Some of those are hilarious!

[PeterL]

Chester, some of those are not bad, and some are excellent (19 & 20). If you want to read really bad stuff like that, then look at the alleged poetry of Walt Whitman.

[cipherdecoy]

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.


:lol: This one is really funny.

[Leabhar]

Chester, some of those are not bad, and some are excellent (19 & 20). If you want to read really bad stuff like that, then look at the alleged poetry of Walt Whitman.

Alleged? Whitman is excellent poetry to many people whether you personally like it or not.

[mortalterror]

There really ought to be two different categories for bad writing: bad writing done by bad writers and bad writing written by good writers. The different types of writers tend to make different types of mistakes.

[Leabhar]

Too bad most people think bad writing is anything they don't personally like.

[stlukesguild]

Too bad most people think bad writing is anything they don't personally like.

That's quite obviously the case here... when we get Dickens and Whitman as examples of "bad" writing.:brickwall

[patrickbeverley]

"He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it."

That's one's not bad, it's genius.

I love Dickens with a passion, but I can't really say anything good about this bit in Nicholas Nickleby:

'This house depresses and chills one,' said Kate, 'and seems as if some blight had fallen on it. If I were superstitious, I should be almost inclined to believe that some dreadful crime had been perpetrated within these old walls, and that the place had never prospered since. How frowning and how dark it looks!'

[PeterL]

Alleged? Whitman is excellent poetry to many people whether you personally like it or not.

Opinions vary.

[Loike]

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Ahahahaha. These are absolutely brilliant. They'll no doubt have me laughing for a good while yet. :lol:.

xx

[Charles Darnay]

I wouldn't call number 9 on the list bad writing...I would call it stolen though...I believe from Douglas Adams.

[stlukesguild]

Alleged? Whitman is excellent poetry to many people whether you personally like it or not.

Opinions vary.

As do the worth of said opinions.:D

"He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it."

That's one's not bad, it's genius.

Yeah:rolleyes: It's so bad it's almost good. Perhaps in the right context... say Lawrence Sterne's Tristam Shandy.

[kelby_lake]

The last few lines of Harry Potter 7:
The (Elder) wand's more trouble then it's worth. Quite honestly, I've had enough trouble for a life time.

700-odd pages undermined.