A Sense of Doubt blog post #2221 - 10 Ways to spot bad writing

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2221 - 10 Ways to spot bad writing



Seems an apt post right now for GRADING HELL.

LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.

https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/10-ways-to-avoid-bad-writing-according-to-a-new-york-literary-agent-b6e16f3c830f

10 Ways to Avoid Bad Writing According To a New York Literary Agent

Good writing is subjective. Bad writing is obvious. 

Linda Caroll

Jan 17 · 11 min read

According to a New York literary agent, it only takes 5 pages to reject a book. Seems his taste is on point — his clients include Pulitzer Prize nominees, NYT best-selling authors and American Book Award winners.

Having spent 2 years reading manuscript submissions at an indie publisher, I can relate. So many people have a great story to tell — and so many of them tell it very badly. Having a good story and telling it well aren’t the same.

I saw an American Idol clip of JLo crying about sending someone home.
It’s hard, she sobbed. You feel like you’re killing their dreams.

That’s how I felt every time I read bad writing.
How do you tell them?
Because they think it’s good.

You know what the problem is, right?

Good writing is subjective…

Problem is, there’s no such thing as good writing. Good is subjective. I might love a book — you think it’s a dud. Taste is personal. And on top of preference and taste, no two people read the same book.

That’s why no one can teach good writing. College can’t. Writing classes can’t. Take as many classes as you want, they can’t teach you good writing because what makes writing good is entirely subjective.

All they can do is teach you not to write badly.

What trips up writers…

The subjective nature of “good writing” trips up writers. When an agent or a publisher (or a publication) rejects their work, they think it’s subjective. Well, “that” person didn’t like it. So they submit elsewhere.

Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes a piece of writing just isn’t a good fit, whether it’s for a publication or a publisher.

Other times, it’s bad writing, but no one wants to say that. No one wants to be JLo telling a singer they’re not good enough yet. So they use the boilerplate rejection and say it’s not a good fit.

You only need to read 5 pages to spot bad writing…

I read a book called The First Five Pages, written by New York literary agent, Noah Lukeman, who says he only needs to read 5 pages of a manuscript to know whether to reject it or not.

5 pages.

Think about it. You write an entire book.
All that work — rejected in 5 pages.

According to Lukeman, some of the most common reasons manuscripts get rejected are things I talk about over and over. Like:
— A weak opening
— Overuse of adjectives and adverbs
— Lack of progression (pace)
— Weak tropes and cliches
— Rambling lack of focus

When the book came out, the Editorial Director of Kirkus Reviews said it should be read by all novice writers.

The book doesn’t tell writers what to do.
It tells them what not to do.

That’s the key to good writing; avoiding the most glaring mistakes.

It’s not about “rules” for good writing.

There aren’t any rules for good writing. I’m not fond of rules to begin with, least of all in writing. There’s little more dreadful than formulaic writing.

Some of the best and most creative artists are the ones who break the rules mercilessly. They don’t just break them, they bend, twist and mutilate them until they are unrecognizable. That’s how art evolves. Writing included.

The best writing advice doesn’t tell you what to do.
It tells you what not to do.

10 Ways to Avoid Bad Writing

The most common advice people give is “write more” — which is horrible advice because if you’re making mistakes, you’re going to keep making the same mistakes. And the habits become more deeply entrenched.

Bad writing isn’t limited to using too many exclamation marks, run on sentences or grammatical errors. Often, bad writing boils down to lazy little habits that are easy to correct once you know them.

So here you go. 10 ways to avoid bad writing.

1. Show, don’t tell.

Writing is seeing. Don’t tell me he was disheveled. Tell me his shirt was half unbuttoned, his eyes were wild and there was blood above his right ear.

Don’t tell me she was sobbing hysterically, tell me there was mascara running down her face as she wiped tears, snot and lipstick across her sleeve.

And don’t tell me about the sleeve, it’s not important. Writers often describe too much. It minimizes the tears. If someone you loved was sobbing does what she’s wearing matter? Only if she’s crying about the clothing.

Only describe what you need to. Good writing starts in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.

Writing is seeing. You cannot paint with words if you don’t see in the first place. Good writing comes from good observation.

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. — Anton Chekhov

Writing is seeing. It is paying attention. — Kate DiCamillo

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2. Also? Your first draft isn’t writing…

Hemingway famously said the first draft of anything is garbage. It should be. The first draft is how you get everything out of your head so you can work with it. To figure out direction, and what you’re trying to say.

The worse your first draft is, the better. It gives you more material to work with. Throw all your thoughts on the table. It’s not a story or an article yet. It’s a brain dump. Sometimes, going on tangents helps us find the focus.

With essays, it’s all the related thoughts. With a novel, it might be back story. Follow every trail. Get it all down.

The real magic happens in editing. When we talk about helpful writing tips, we’re referring to editing. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a book or a post on Medium, you have to brain dump first. Fill the box with sand.

Once you have all the words down, that’s when you can begin to work with them. Rearrange, chop, edit and revise.

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. — Terry Pratchett

I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so later I can build castles. — Shannon Hale

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3. Chop liberally to maintain focus…

If I had to pick one chapter of Lukeman’s book for all writers to read, it would be the chapter on focus. Rambling is one of the most common problems.

Every piece of writing has a point it’s trying to make, or a trail of thought from beginning to end. For a novel, it’s the plot. For an essay, it’s the take away for the reader. Anything that doesn’t somehow support the focus doesn’t belong.

A skilled writer can go off on a tangent and then tie it back to the focus. There’s a lot of wiggle room there. But there’s little room for rambling.

Don’t mistake focus for linear writing. Linear writing is often boring. Flash backs and back stories can be a fascinating way to add meat to the focus.

Often, writers come up with a sentence or paragraph they’re particularly fond of, the way the words fit together. But if they don’t move the story forward or add to the point, they don’t belong.

When a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling. — Stephen King

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — wholeheartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings. — Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

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4. Avoid lazy adjectives & adverbs…

Adjectives and adverbs get a bad rap. They’re not bad, they’re just words that describe things. They are a necessary part of our language —the problem is how people use them. Rather, how we misuse them.

For example, if you tell me the bank robber drove away in a red truck, red is an adjective — and a helpful one, at that. “He was in a truck” isn’t helpful. Sometimes, we need adjectives. A red Ford truck is even more helpful.

Another example — saying she entered the room silently is entirely different than just saying she entered the room. Silently is an adverb that “describes” the verb (entering)

But too often, we get lazy. We use an adverb instead of thinking of a better verb. Instead of saying she walked slowly, perhaps we could say she strolled, or dawdled, or trudged. Ambled, meandered. You see?

He didn’t walk very quickly to the boss’s office, he hurried there. She’s not very pretty, she’s gorgeous. See what I mean by lazy?

Often, we use adjectives and adverbs redundantly. We don’t need to say she yelled loudly, because we know yelling is loud. We don’t need to say tiptoed stealthily, because tiptoeing already implies stealth.

In The First Five Pages, Lukeman says if a book has too many unnecessary adverbs and adjectives in the first 5 pages, it gets rejected. It’s not the adverbs or adjectives that are the problem. It’s that they’re often lazy word choices.

Adverbs are the tool of the lazy writer. — Mark Twain

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs and I will shout it from the rooftops. — Stephen King

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5. Clichés weaken your writing…

Everyone says not to use clichés, but they seldom explain why. A cliché is a shortcut. What writers bring to the table is their unique way of seeing the world. When you use a cliché, you fail to do that. You bring tired old thinking instead of fresh eyes.

Don’t tell me you gave the job 110% and got laid off, tell me you worked 10 hours a day, ate lunch at your desk and missed your daughter’s ballet recital and it didn’t make a lick of difference when they walked you out the door.

Also? Clichés aren’t just tired old phrases. There are clichéd characters and tired old ways of thinking and seeing the world, too. A poorly executed trope can be a cliché. Bad guys wear black, pretty young women need to be rescued and the big white guy is the hero, right? Cliché.

All writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen, but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.

— Martin Amis

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6. Pay attention to pace…

Bad writing often starts slow, picks up in the middle and ends with a weak finish. It doesn’t make for good reading.

No surprise that a weak opening and lack of progression (pace) are 2 of the things that get a manuscript rejected in under 5 pages.

Pace is the speed at which the story moves along.

Want to know something crazy? Weak pace often happens for the simplest and silliest reason. Writers think they need to keep everything in the same order that it showed up in the draft. You don’t. When you’re just getting the words down, they often show up linear. They don’t have to stay that way.

Flashbacks and backstory are great devices that can improve pace.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a formula. No piece of writing can be all fast or all slow. Think of it like music — it’s ups and downs, not one note played over and over. If there was a formula, it would be this: don’t bore your reader.

The key to good writing is to leave Boo Radley in the house until the end of the story — Michael P. Naughton

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts. — Charles Dickens

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7. Read

Don’t just read about writing, read anything that interests you. Fantasy, horror, science fiction, poetry. Graphic novels are spectacular examples of concise writing.

It is almost impossible to do good work in any field if you don’t know what good work looks like. Good books let you be an apprentice, reading and enjoying and learning along the way.

There’s an old saying that you are a composite of the 5 people you interact with most. Reading is the writer’s equivalent of that. The writers you admire will influence you. It just seeps in.

Read — read like a book eater, for we are all just patchwork quilts stitched of influence. And you will be influenced. The only question is whether or not you choose the work that influences you.

If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or tools to write. Simple as that. — Stephen King

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. — Joseph Addison

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8. Play with poetry

Some of the most accomplished writers also dabble in poetry. What a poet seems to understand, whether conscious or not, is that there’s rhythm to stringing words together. That understanding of the rhythm of words, the magic of a beautiful sentence bleeds into all writing.

And I don’t mean rhyming. Not all poetry rhymes. A lilting, dancing of words and the sounds they make in our heads as we read them.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my Annabel Lee
(Edgar Allan Poe)

Poetry requires the writer pay attention to the feel, the lilting sound only the right words can make, stirring emotion with a few concise words.

Writing, Lukeman says, can be technically correct but rhythmically unpleasant. We’ve all read that type of writing, haven’t we? Sentences we stumble over and have to re-read, sometimes more than once.

Reading your own writing out loud can help find those.

Find a type of poetry you can play with. Haiku and Free Verse are most common. If you’re brave, tackle a Sonnet. Even if no one ever sees your attempts at poetry, it will sharpen your writing skills like little else.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words — Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. — Thomas Gray

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9. Seek helpful feedback…

Some people think they should listen to everyone’s advice because it will help them become a better writer. If you truly understand that “good” is subjective, this makes absolutely no sense. One person will love what another hates. What part of that is helpful? None.

The problem with advice and critique is that people tend to tell you “how” to fix something that they think needs fixing. They’re almost always wrong because they’re coming at it from what’s in their head, not in the writer’s head.

The only writing advice that’s remotely helpful is when someone tells you what feels off, and let’s you figure out how to fix it. That’s the only way to seek help with writing. To ask what’s not working here?

Neil Gaiman said it best…

When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. — Neil Gaiman

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10. Expect rejection

No one hits it out of the park every time. The player with the most home runs is usually also the player that struck out most.

When you expect to be rejected, you can stop taking rejection personally. When you stop taking it personally, it frees you up to dig deeper.

A writer’s job was never to please anyone, although it’s nice when we do. A writer’s job is to get some small percent better than we were last week, last story, last month, last year.

Approval doesn’t precede growth except in the dictionary. As you work on your writing skills, approval will come.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places. — Ernest Hemingway

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Before You Go…

If you enjoyed this, you’ll also like my Friday emails on writing and marketing. https://lindac.substack.com/

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