BAD FICTION

You probably saw this announcement of the winner of the Bulwer-Lytton contest for bad writing. The winner - and note that this is for deliberate bad writing! - was American academic, Sue Fondrie, for this very short but very awful sentence:

"Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."

It illustrates two things. (Well, two for starters.)

First, one of the most common problems I see in the work of aspiring writers is over-writing, and particularly the horrible use of similes. And wow, is this a horrible simile! Similes should only be used when needed. Similes must enrich; they must give a sense of, "AH! Now I can picture that. Now I can feel it in my heart." If something is clear and obvious and familiar already, it doesn't need a simile to enhance it.

Good similes hit us in the heart. Bad ones grip us somewhere nearer the bowels.

What does a good simile look like? There's an example I use and I apologise to the writer in one of my workshops who wrote this, because I can't remember who it was and therefore can't credit her. If she sees this, I hope she will tell me!

She was describing a funeral procession going up a hillside in Sicily (I think) and she used the image of "a black centipede against the white hillside". It's perfect - apt, necessary, enriching. She doesn't need to say "crawling" or "winding" because we already know those things about centipedes. And that's the point about writing: every word you use brings more than simply that word to your reader's mind. The word brings with it a whole cohort of attached and unavoidable meanings.

And that is the second point: the writer's magic weapon. Every time we use a word, the reader or listener pictures it, and pictures it along with a load of aspects of that word or image. (I'm going to blog further about that magic writing weapon soon.) This is an incredibly important point to remember: every word you use has more power than you think, and that power is one you must control. Bad similes are examples of very poor weapon control by the writer.

So, let's go over that awful simile and you'll see why understanding points 1 and 2 will show you exactly why it's so wrong.

• "mind turned like the vanes" - how does this help? Can you picture a mind turning like vanes? Do you not already know what it feels like when thoughts come fast? So, neither necessary nor apt.
• "wind-powered turbine" - so, now we have a wind-turbine in our mind, and it is so not helping. Neither necessary nor apt.
• "chopping her ... thoughts into bloody pieces" - why bloody? How does it help the image to have thoughts becoming physical things that can be chopped? Are we any closer to the desired meaning?
• "her sparrow-like thoughts" - with sparrows in our minds we're now thinking of aspects of sparrows: small, brown, chirping, common, bird. 
• "bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile" - and the sparrows in our mind are now chopped into bloody pieces. We are further from the desired meaning than ever. And feeling sick. Besides, while you can have a pile of chopped birds, you can't really have a growing pile of thoughts.
• "of forgotten memories" - why? Why is her pile of "forgotten memories" growing during this small moment of wind-turbine-like thinking? Are they immediately forgotten as soon as they hit the pile? How? Why? WTF is going on?

In short, far from being closer to understanding (which is the whole point of a simile), we are completely confused, as our brains struggle to process the chopped birds and blood all over the hillside where the wind-turbine sits.

But I am very glad that Sue Sondrie wrote this simile because I can now use it: when I do workshops, I'm always looking for examples of bad similes (and other horrors) and I find them very difficult to invent. So, please help me! Can you give me examples (with permission to use them) of poor similes? Not necessarily outrageous ones, but just "not very good" ones, ones that miss the point and don't help.

Bad writing is not as easy as it looks. Congratulations to Sue Fondrie!

ADJECTIVES AND MACHETES

I've been mulling over over-writing quite a bit recently. Partly because I've been doing talks and workshops with the title, "What's Wrong With your Manuscript?" and partly because I keep seeing over-writing in the manuscripts that come my way via my Pen2Publication consultancy.

What do I mean by over-writing? Well, I've written about it before but I've recently developed a new name for it: Trying Too Hard To Sound Like a Writer.

I've also written about it fairly extensively in Write to be Published, and I thought I'd give you a little snippet from that:

Some genres and contexts require and tolerate more poetic bits. Some books and voices differ similarly. If you’ve read lots of books in your genre, you can more easily judge what is right for your book. But, whatever your genre, you will almost certainly do yourself a favour by toning down at least some parts, and then your best bits will stand out even better. You can’t see purple against a purple background.

Mark Twain’s words, written in 1880, bear repeating: “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”

He’s wrong, actually: it’s not hard at all. Be tough with yourself and your writing will benefit. If in doubt, cut it out. My preferred weapon is a machete. It’s remarkably therapeutic.

But which ones? Here are some tips:

• Particularly avoid the repetitious and over-easy adjective+noun adjective+noun adjective+noun format
• And adjectives that were incredibly easy for you to think of - consider whether that's because they are clichés
• When you see a pair of adjectives together, consider whether one of them is better - omit the weaker one
• Be wary of adjectives that sound too flowery for the context or the character or the voice
• If you are particularly proud of one, consdier whether you're being too proud and showing off - if it's not right for the reader, axe it.

I've got more examples of how some of you are guilty of Trying Too Hard To Sound Like a Writer. And I will be back with them soon, but meanwhile: get axing.