The writing class I was going to teach, Working Out the Wonk: Tools for Improving Your Writing, never happened. No one signed up. I think it was a timing issue. Asking people to give up five Saturday mornings in the middle of a Minnesota summer is simply asking too much. I may repackage the class into shorter, stand-alone sessions and try to offer them again during a different season. Winter would be good. It’s when most of us Minnesotans are stir-crazy and introspective.
About a month ago, when I was getting ready for the class, I posted that I had written a bad writing sample, something I could use in class for discussion. Several of my readers wondered about that sample, which I did not supply here in case anyone reading my blog was planning to take the class. (I didn’t want to blow the surprise.) Now that the class has been canceled, I present my bad writing sample:
Staplers sit on desks. They look like they will chomp you if you give them a chance. Sometimes they sit next to empty rolls of toilet paper that are sitting on the desk for no apparent reason that Sally knows, let alone Steven. You don’t know Sally or Steven and that’s the way it’s going to stay because I don’t feel like writing with them now that I’m looking at my desk and wondering when was the last time I backed up my computer data on the external hard drive and why are there so many cords here and why did the dog chew up this stack of papers right here that are important and not to be shredded? Doesn’t he know any better? Do you know any better?
They could ring the bells and no one would come running. There are long, green, tempestuous grass on the hill that they might run thru, but they are not allowed to run because someone said so. Someone, someone, said so. Ring-a-ding-ding, let’s make like a banana and split. Because who don’t like a banana split? With all them bananas and chocolate and caramel and strawberries and whipped toppings. If you eat too many, you will be sick and sick is not well. They fell into a well. That’s why they can’t run. Thru that long grass, I mean. They can’t run thru bubbles. They can’t run thru breaked glass. They can’t run thru black staplers piled ten-foot height on desks made of tomato doors.
Let’s make like a tea and leaf. Because drinks of tea are marvelous for the indigestible and for the series of tubes we all call the internet. Does anyone back up the internet on external hard drives that lie in the long grasses and weep? I don’t think so and neither do you. Hard work. These are hard works, putting words together in way-ways that make them bad. What do you think? Can you on purpose write bad? Can you say what makes badly this peace of writing? Or would you rather run through staplers stacked ten feet high?
Setting stacks of staplers aside, what makes this a bad piece of writing?
Is there any circumstance under which it might be considered a good piece of writing?
Like beauty, bad writing is difficult to define, but you know it when you see it.
This, together with my never having taken a writing course, is why I can’t say exactly why your example is bad writing.
However, it seems to lack rhythm, has too many words, is affected, no doubt because the writer is trying to be clever, or is self-consciously trying to indulge in unconscious stream-of-consciousness writing.
Almost looks like fun trying to write bad, and that it’s purposely done, makes it a work of art.
With your permission, I just may use this on my own students someday (w/o telling them it’s purposely badly written, though in some ways, it seems kind of obvious).
Actually, many blogs are poorly written as I observe on a daily basis, but I guess that would be distasteful asking someone to use their work as an example of bad writing.
I am sorry to hear that your class got canceled. That’s really a shame because a lot of people (myself included) are deficient in writing. Those students don’t know what they are missing.
Peace,
circlelovely
p.s. I am not a literary critic by any stretch (or an English major) and actually have no qualification to critique your writing sample, but perhaps I could give it a humble attempt? It appears that each sentence is dependent on the content of the previous sentence, but not in any kind of coherent way. This is problematic in this example because paragraphs are supposed to be coherent collections of sentences that convey a complete idea, but the radical fluidity of each individual sentence means that the paragraphs are not conveying a complete idea. Also, I noticed that there appears to be several change in Grammatical person; switching between first, second and third person vantages. As for how to improve this, I will take the option to run through staplers stacked 10 miles high.
p.s.s. Would you be so kind as to let me know if I am even close to being right (and what the right answer is, if there is one)? In either case, feel free to have a hearty laugh at my expense!
Hi, Philippe, LK, and circlelovely. Thanks for the comments on the bad writing. I was hoping this would make for a lively discussion in a class, with my example leading to people talking about other bad writing they’ve seen.
LK – You’ve hit upon the exact reason I chose to write my own sample of bad writing; I didn’t want to embarrass anyone by pointing to the bad writing I’ve uncovered during my reading. Feel free to use my sample in any classes you teach, but also give bad writing a try yourself. It’s much harder than it seems.
Philippe – You are right on in your analysis of my bad writing, with one exception. I wasn’t UNconsciously writing stream-of-consciousness writing; I was CONSCIOUSLY trying to write it, which is probably why it comes across as affected.
circlelovely – You, too, are right on in your analysis. The piece is incoherent and doesn’t convey ideas with any elegance. I also switched between points of view, misspelled a few words, unnecessarily fragmented sentences (which leads to the sense of incoherence), threw in some grammatical errors, and used cliches.
As my son said, this is a painful read.
Now, for the tough question. Under what circumstances might this be considered good writing? Or would it always be classified as bad?
☼ ☼ I Agree with all these Remarks, since I DO write like this, therefore:
“I Resemble those Remarks!”
And, Mz Woo[or LK], you can use any of my postings as an examples of what NOT to do …Seriously! ♫
► Thanks for the Trap, Mz Woo!? …As to Falling Into it:
“Now, for the tough question. Under what circumstances might this be considered good writing? Or would it always be classified as bad?”:
➊ It would be fine as a personal journal entry, although sometimes I can’t even follow my own!
➋ It would be fine as a Draft, so one doesn’t get bogged down with all that rigmarole of Caps, Punctuation, and Sentence Structure? {~ Thou shalt not step on the Muse’s toes!?}
➌ It can work if the writer wants to take someone on a journey, a mind walk, outside the mundane parameters we usually pull over our heads to protect ourselves …away from our overly Structured personal worlds! But, this Self imposed Confinement may actually dim our prospects of having truly meaningful “Ah Ha” moments?
And, you need to have a reader willing to even attempt to figure out what you’re saying, as boundaries may dissipate? [WHEW, glad that's over ...ehhh?!]
➍ It works as a Mind F**k,
➍½ or, Maybe As Free Floating Prose Poetry, or a Song?[Laurie Anderson or Bob Dylan could do that song?!]
➎ It is fine, if you think that no one ever really reads what you post anyway, so you might as well just enjoy posting whatever flitters through your beady little brain! …Why Knot?
➏ It works if you have brain damage from a motorcycle accident and/or 3 week hospital stay in 2003! [Which the hospital then categorizes you as Terminally Psychotic, from which you'll never recover!]
➐ It works if you think that everyone else is Terminally Psychotic, so you might as well just enjoy yourself, and let the cards fall where they may!
➐½ Alternately, as a Journal you write for your psychiatrist, as he ponders the imponderable internal world you’ve created!?
➑ It works if your mind is usually “Entertaining” a dozen different concepts that are concurrently running! But Alas, the Pour Reader!
➒ Personally, Aye love to destroy structure, and force my mind out of the confines of the Box which I’ve been generating since Birth! …Ahhh, But it’s sooo comfy in there with all it’s rules & regulations, paragraphs, punctuation, capitalizations, proper nouns, thought processes …you know, the things that give our lives structure & coherence, but May Limit our ability to integrate new ideas, because everything is a square, which we then whittle it away to fit within our Round Holes of conceptualizations? [Can Eye get another WHEW, Hear?!]
➓ It works for me, if I’ve Twisted words & Concepts in the wind enough, that Any reader comes away thinking of Any thing slightly differently?!
➓¼ …Or, maybe as a Zen Koan:
“What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?”
➓½ Or, what is the purpose of a Word Play Joke, if not to Twist Meanings,
so things are Highlighted in a slightly different Light?
➓¾ I wouldn’t have tried for 10[now more], but I had these Nifty bullet numbers
burning a Hole in my pocket, and I just wanted to Share!
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♫ If’n ya want, Here’s the whole string four you two copy & paste into wherever ewe “Compose” your Utterances[Lovely word]!:
➊ ➋ ➌ ➍ ➎ ➏ ➐ ➑ ➒ ➓ ◄:)
♥ Maybe, I could have boiled this down to:
“Do we control our Structures & Conventions, or do they control us, and what part should they be allowed to play in semi-coherent discourse?”
…Aye guess whee are whey past the utterances of Uggg? …Well, maybe not in my case?
❄❄❄ Ps, It May Not Work if you’re seeking Appreciation, Respect, Acceptance, and Validation from OTHERS?!
As you can see, My Kite was released from the Bondage Imposed by the Evil String, Long Long Ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away!!? ۞ ☼
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♪ Psps, the original screed makes some sense to me, except what exactly are: “tomato doors?” It Seems Incongruous! ♫
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You did ask, so there’s my take on it, And:
Due ewe have any other questions that aye could bee of service with? Eye could sea my whey threw answering a few more concerning hour mental structures, and how whee are thrown off base buy the simplest of deviations from hour internal data networks! …Ore, Knot?! …”Hay, aye just want two sea watt eye expect too sea!!! …Wear is my Comfy Banky?”
Very good, Jerry! You’ve given me more examples of situations under which this sample could be considered good writing than had even crossed my mind. If a writer writes ‘badly’ on purpose for a specific effect, then that ‘bad’ writing can be considered good if it leaves the reader with the desired effect. So, if I purposely wanted to create a certain painful tension in a reader, I might choose to write as I did above.
☼ I woke this morning thinking that I’d left out the most important part[for me]: “Entertainment!” But, that led to thinking about “Amusement”[notice the embedded "Muse"?], which in turn led to thinking about Neil Postman’s 1984 book “Amusing Ourselves to Death …”: SHORT 3 MIN VIDEO
, or: ABOUT THE BOOK, and the ensuing conundrum of whether I Really wanted to add to our collective Amusement, Disorientation, & Infotainment?!
But, the answer is YES, since we expect to be somewhat entertained, amused, or entranced, and it’s not necessarily evil or even “New!”
Shakespeare, Twain, and Jon Stewart all employ it, but I guess we just need to Not allow simple Amusement to Overwhelm or Smother us, and extinguish “Real Life?”
• Sorry, I got side tracked by having to reply to a friend who wanted to start a discussion group on Death & Dying! I replied very wordily that I don’t have a problem with physical death, but I have a problem with being able to conceptualize My Own Non-Existence, since that’s All that each of our Little “I’s” Truly Know! [Our Light Goes Out!]
► And, later I got your response to this thread, and Yes you can employ that type of writing, as long as your reader is willing to be Jerked around, before they throw their metaphorical hands in the air, and simply Give Up?! Having a Dedicated following, or a bunch of Deeply Disturbed Individuals, can be a Blessing in cases like this?!
◘ I usually don’t Write badly for effect, but rather because I’m not a very good writer, and because My Mind just won’t sit still! I have no patience! And, while I know Patience is a Virtue, I also don’t want to feel like I’m filling a Sand Box with a Tea Spoon!
Paying attention to Detail can be as Life Threatening or Extinguishing of a Sense of Self, as Any Other Neverending Amusements?
♫ But, Enough About You, Let’s Talk About Me! {Olde Joke!}
☼ As Always, I hope my Scribblings/Musings are Amusing or Entertaining?
But, I have this Ugly thought that the person who told me that I had to take the Road to Perdition to reach Enlightenment City, MAY have been Pushing My Leg? ◄:) … ۞