100 Ways to Write Badly Well

by Joel Stickley

"His use of language, his ability to twist the narrative and turn the obscure into the profound is outstanding." – The StageLooking for a creative writing guide out there that will tell you how to write better? A book to tell you how to structure a perfect plot, create great characters, use language in a powerful and poetic way? This is not that book.100 Ways to Write Badly Well is an adventure in drivel. It will teach you how to botch a plot, how to create characters that no one in their right mind would identify with and how to reduce the beauty of the English language to an incoherent mush.Using one hundred practical examples, each awful in its own unique way, blogger and creative writing tutor Joel Stickley will lead you methodically up the creek and carefully remove your paddle before running off and leaving you stranded. The route is lined with mixed metaphors, terrible plot twists, piles of adjectives and characters staring at themselves in mirrors for no apparent reason.Based on the popular blog and live comedy show How To Write Badly Well, this book is an invaluable guide to the art of awful writing that no would-be author should be without. Remember – if a thing's worth doing badly, it's worth doing badly well.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Writing

114 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jozef · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the introduction, the author proudly proclaims this to be a toilet book. I appreciated this honesty. And for what it is? It's pretty great! There are 100 (very) short stories in here, and some of them are laugh out loud funny. A few are less so, and a few genuinely made me angry. So I guess I experienced an entire spectrum of feelings reading this. Silly feelings, but still fun.

[Y.]

CREATIVE WRITING
1 - Be metaphoric.
9 - Use metaphors as long as readers can keep track of what's happening (and where needed).
24 - Change tone, use metaphors according to the scene. Describe emotions, let readers experience it, do not give science lessons.
12 - Don't cramp too much academics/history in a discussion that would not reflect the characters' personalities. (Either explain in the background or let the characters deal with it as they would, not as a TV news report.)

6 - Don't copy stereotypes, be creative, but also give something for people to relate to.

WORD USE
2 - Don't use more than 2 adjectives to describe one thing.
5 - Use "said" sometimes if not often.
25 - Use appropriate vocab together, don't try to act intelligent with useless difficult words.
11 - Don't use "suddenly" too much.
13 - Either use (specialized) words that people understand, or explain the words they wouldn't.

FLOW
3 - Shadow the future (while also giving events from the present.)
27 - without exposing the twists.
17 - Foreshadow but do not explain everything at once (through conversation). Add reveals at intervals.

GENERAL WRITING
4 - Worry about tenses.
16 - Know grammar rules.
7 - Use good grammar.

14 - Make it clear who is saying what, and add context during dialogue (details about what happens with the characters, setting, etc).

18 - Focus on one perspective per scene. Transition between events happening around the person by relating it to the character (or at least drives the plot).

CHARACTERS
8 - Make actions and emotions make sense and please don't make characters dumb.
26 - Don't add useless, weak, unrelateable, unlikeable people. If someone is to be bullied, make them Game of Thrones material (redeeming qualities).
10 - Don't use similar backgrounds for everyone, give them substance and personality (not just in their past, but also in their present). 23 - Make characters real and relatable (making mistakes, having problems, etc).

MORAL NOTES
15 - Don't glorify evil actions. (+ make the characters feel guilty or face bad consequences or do not give meaning to these actions)

ENDING
28 - Answer questions raised (mysteries), unless it's a cliff-hanger. Make things make sense.

29 -

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly enjoyable, even if I did spend quite a lot of time questioning my own writing about whether I do these things. A toilet book, but an excellent toilet book

[Librosito99 · Rating 5 out of 5]

200% worth it just for the comedy value, i have never laughed so hard while reading...a BOOK!

[Spaghett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun!

A fun goof to flip through a few minutes at a time, each short chapter demonstrates a bad writing trope by using it in the most egregious way possible. Some of them are a bit too on the nose but several are very funny. It did feel like some of them were the same problem but stated slightly differently, but I enjoyed them all the same.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joel Stickley has written really well 100 examples of bad writing. Is it ironic that each of the examples he gives was enjoyable? The book is a light-hearted funny read, so if you enjoy comedic writing the book is worth it just for that. And as long as you do the inverse of all the rules it’s also helpful for any inexperienced writer.

[Anne Treasure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Far funnier and infinitely less painful than I imagined it would be, from a language-curmudgeon point of view, this book is a brilliant resource for learning what not to do when writing by reading how terrible writing misteps can be when put into action.