[#1]
From Steel's sentence we learn that clear writing is a matter of effective sequencing. A sentence, whether it is in a novel or a technical report, is a sequence of information. Good writing is good sequencing. At least in this reporter's opinion.
The word on the street, by the way, is that Danielle does not actually "write" her books. She dictates them to a tape recorder, then lets someone else type them up. Apparently, to borrow what Hemingway said of Gertrude Stein, revision is an activity that gives her no pleasure.
[Contributor: Scott Rice, San Jose, CA]
[Contributor: Su Irons, Auckland, New Zealand]
[Contributor: Chuck Myer, Colfax, CA (1997 BLFC Western runner-up)]
[#4]
[Contributor: Gene M., Yakima, Washington]
"Why do nuts women
always have cats? Why not dogs, dogs who are just as excited to see you
after you drive up to the corner to get milk as they were when they
first met you, instead of cats, who, as Pat always said, regarded people
as warm-blooded furniture? To keep her eyes to herself, Beth stared down
at Loreta's ample thigh in its armor of polyester, a blue that did not
exist in nature. Why did nuts women aged about sixty-five who kept cats
also wear stretch pants? With flowered blouses that looked chosen
carefully for their potential to make the wearer look like ten miles of
bad road under a tablecloth? Because something like these clothes had
looked good on them when they were young? Because everything else looked
worse? As she let her glance slide upward to Loretta's tightly furled
perm, like a head of late-spring buds, she heard the woman ask Candy,
"So, do you want me to do a trance? Or just give you some impressions?"
[Contributor: Larry Sherman, Fremont, California]
[Contributor: Jeff Vorzimmer, Austin]
Despite touching on just about every cheesy cliché from the mad scientist who wants to destroy the world, to the evil Russian wrestler who kills people in the ring (hey, it was the cold war still!!) and, of course, the mysterious Asian spiritual mentor, this classic gave us such literary gems as: "She wanted to wrap her legs around him the way a tree wraps itself around a mountain" and the ever popular "She rode astride him like a
bucking bronco in the rodeo of the flesh."
[Contributor: Colin Fisk, Fremont, CA]
This, um, remarkable statement refers to the heroic Irish terrorist
Seaneen O'Sullivan in Cathy Cash Spellman's novel An Excess of Love. In truth, I found this book, which follows the fortunes of two sisters around the time of Ireland's Easter Rising in 1916, very entertaining. I even picked up a little history. However, it's been at least five years since I read An Excess of Love, and I still remember how I howled with laughter upon reading this line, which, when taken in context, does not appear to have anything to do with Seaneen's sex life.
[Contributor: Kate Nagy, Bethesda, MD]
"Let's say you're moving to a bigger, better home. You've been working all day, lugging around boxes, and you're thirsty. Unfortunately, the soda's on the counter and your hands are full of boxes. So what do you do? You ask your friend to give you a drink. He or she pours it down your throat with no sense of when is enough. After a few gulps, you decide you don't want to drown in Coke and start waving your arms and nodding you head. Your friend gets the message and stops pouring the drink. This is flow control."
[Contributor: Wallace Frost, Media, PA]
"Rising from some elusive and overwrought part of the equatorial sea at least five degress hotter than it's supposed to be, El Nino is a mysterious U.F.O. of rain and wind thousands of miles wide hovering mysteriously out in the Pacific, the monstrous meteorological butterfly that flaps its wings on the other side of the world and gives you a balmy winter in Manhattan."
"Tremulous hopes of Pacific disaster spring eternal in the East Coast hearts. We know this; you hate us; it's O.K. In the Moment of the Held Breath (author's long shorthand for California) we've lived with the resentment of the age as routinely as we live with the news of El Nino because, as old hands at apocalypse, our own particular narcissism is such that we not only expect El Nino, but we also hope for it."
"Living in California, we define ourselves by chaos; the pending cataclysm, whatever it might be at any given moment, reminds us who we are. As with the house I live in [note: author describes it as "launching out from a hillside and over a chasm below, away from the land and into the air."] the very occupation of California--a fractured, partially liquefied terrain of arid deserts, hostile mountains, dense
woods and craggy seashores--is an act of recklessness, it's motivated by both the hubris of transcendence and the rapture of self-annihilation. More than merely believing we're the only ones who actually deserve El Nino, we need (author italicizes 'need'). Take our apocalypse from us, and we are nothing."
And finally . . .
"As it happens, maternity wards report that veritable monsoons of babies are born during storms and full moons, and since our kid's due date coincides not only with the the rains but with the full moon as well, we're preparing for him to come blowing out of my wife in such a gust that
it will take the combined efforts of doctors, nurses, midwives, orderlies, physical therapists, security guards, parking attendants and previously comatose patients to lash the little sucker down. He will be an El Nino baby lit with demon moonlight, a child of chaos like the rest of us, counting down the minutes to the end of the world like the drops of rain that would wash us away."
"El Nino" is colloquial Spanish for the Christ Child. Heaven help us, writing like this must be a sin.
[Contributor: John Ormsby, Berkeley]
Lytton was not the only bad writer of his day, not by a long shot. As a mangler of prose, he had plenty of company. One group of purple prose artists was featured in "The Lily Series," a stream of wholesome novels spewed forth on both sides of the Atlantic. The publishers explained their morally uplifting (and doubtlessly lucrative) mission this way:
"The design of this Series is to include no books except such as are peculiarly adapted by their high tone, pure taste, and thorough principles to be read by those persons, young and old, who look upon books as upon their friends--only worthy to be received into the Family Circle for their good qualities and excellent characters. In view of this design, no author whose name is not a guarantee of the real worth of his or her work or whose book has not been subject to rigid examination, will be admitted into the 'Lily Series.'"
By the time Faith Gartney's Girlhood was released in the series, seventy-eight titles had displayed sufficient "high tone, pure taste, and thorough principles" to pass the publisher's "rigid examination." Among the classics of the series were Quinnebasset Girls, How Marjorie Helped, and Madeleine: A Story of French Love (which couldn't have been as interesting as the title sounds). As for the stylistic standards, well, they were downright Lyttonian:
[Contributor: Stanley Perks, Boca Raton, Florida]
Herewith two actually published snippets. The first is from the recently published The Atonement and Other Stories Louis Auchincloss; it's the opening sentence of the story "Ars Gratia Artis", and comes as close to Paulcliffordism as anything I've seen. (Perhaps Auchincloss aspires to a Bulwer laureateship?) The second is the opening of a godawful Victorian novel, The History of Sir Richard Calmady : A
Romance, by Lucas Malet.
[Contributor: Fr. John Woolley, Denver]
COMMENT: This is a first-person narration. Would you criticize Marlon Brando for Stanley Kowalski's speech? [Or Tennessee Williams?]
Dennis Mahony : dmahony@prodigy.net
[Contributor: Greg George, Cincinnati, Ohio]
The above appeared under a Reuters and New York Times byline in an article published in the Toronto Globe and Mail. It deals with Sadaam Hussein's refusal to allow Americans to be part of a UN weapons inspection team. Apparently, Mr. Annan wants others to share in the U.S.'s problem by spreading it around.
[Contributor: Boris Krivy, Toronto]
Every time I go to the library, I like to get out a few books by authors I have never heard of, just to make sure I'm not missing out on good books merely because they aren't well known. Occasionally, this effort
turns up gold. Frequently, however, it brings me into contact with authors whose obscurity is eminently justifiable. The most recent example of that kind had me worried when I encountered the following
line in the first paragraph:
[Contributor: Jeffry Herman, Somerville, MA.]
" Even before the deal with Straker had been consummated (that's some word all right, he thought, and his eyes crawled over the front of his secretary's blouse), Lawrence Crockett was, without doubt, the richest man in 'Salem's Lot and one of the richest in Cumberland County, although there was nothing about his office or his person to indicate it."
This comes from Stephen King's novel Salem's Lot, and for me, the imagery of
those happy little eyeballs is a bit startling to say the least!
[Contributor: Kaye Bellot, Modesto, CA]
"Eighteen years ago, on the night of her eighth birthday, in a seaside cottage on Key West, Chyna had squirmed under her bed to hide from Jim Woltz, her mother's friend. A storm had been raging from the Gulf of Mexico, and the sky-blistering lightning had made her fearful of scaping to the sanctuary of the beach where she'd retreated on other nights. After committing herself to the cramped space under that iron bed, which had been lower slung that this one, she had discovered that she was sharing it with a palmetto beetle. Palmettos were not as exotic or as pretty as their name. In fact, they were nothing more than enormous tropical cockroaches."
Frankly, this passage frightens me on a number of levels.
[Contributor: Jordan J. Earl, Asheville, NC]
Am I overreacting?
The first sentence of chapter one reads:
[Contributor ?]
"Having had time to think it over, Andrew had decided that he did not believe in this for a moment. If he had not been so unfortunate at different times during the last few years as to become involved in the solution of a murder or two, so that he was more inclined than he would have been before he had been drawn into that rather gruesome activity to think that his own wild guesses were sometimes perhaps to be taken seriously, he would not even have considered such a possibility."
[Contributor: Sue D'Arcy, Northern Territory, Australia]
On October 17, 1997 Matt Hayes of the Jacksonville Times
Union wrote:
[Contributor: Bill Weldon, Bell, FL]
This San Jose Mercury News writer, Patrick May, has definable talent. He should visit your classes and describe the manner in which he develops his purple prose. The following was in the Sunday paper (January 18, 1998):
"Shrouded in Winder fog, trapped in the gullies of the Mother Lode, the ghosts of a thousand mining camps toss in a fitful slumber. Down in
Dead Mule Cañon, up on Chicken-Thief Flat, the pick and shovel clang in
muffled knell. A century and a half after that first golden glint
caught James Marshall's eye, after the lust and liquor scattered lost
souls over every hill and hollow, these foothills still tremble."
He continues, "The Gold Rush wsa the largest mass migration in American history. It ws the champagne bottle smashed over California's bow."
[Contributor: Rick Sherman, San Jose, CA]
I would like to introduce you to Ms. Sally Small, the video review columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, which is the only English-language daily paper in the area.
Ms. Small writes in a misspelled stream-of-consciousness style that, while probably intended to be chatty, mostly comes off as schizophrenic. She leaps from one incoherent
phrase to the next, springing random unprovoked attacks on "liberal" celebrities. Religious holidays are an excuse for orgies of Christian prosyletizing. She recently informed her readers that a certain Asian actor resembled Number Two Son from the Charlie Chan movies.
Eventually, after an entire page of this drivel, she offhandedly gets around to mentioning the video that was the purported reason for her miserable column in the first place. Here's the best part: The people she's attacked in her column are usually NOT EVEN IN the video being reviewed!
I would go on, but words fail me. I'll let the anti-writer speak for herself. I dunno, maybe YOU can figure out what the hell it is she's trying to say.
"Initiatively offended by this 'prudish remark,' that's what
my friend of the opposite sex wanted to shrug it off as, Al
asked me to elaborate."
"At first, 'Event Horizon' seems to be the regulated sci-fi
thriller."
"But, it's THIS ludicrous episode that calls for the smelling
sauce: ..."
"If that's not enough torture, guess who's skinny again.
Oprah. The sentimental, talk show queen willingly shares
her holiday diet secrets. Hoo, hoo, please spare us.
Excuse me, but aren't we looking at a possible Iraqi
situation?"
"Sometimes, cheesy TV writers are fortunate enough to
squeeze the blood out of an egghead's dumb mistakes."
[Contributor: David Bryant, San Antonio]
(A little history: a member of Copyediting-L, a list server for copy editors, submitted the following for comment:
This opening paragraph appeared in a news story in the Boston Globe. Does anyone else think it sounds as if Louise Woodward handled the baby while the polygraph examiner was interviewing her?
Louise Woodward, who will appeal to the state's Supreme Judicial Court to dismiss her manslaughter conviction next month, apparently contradicted her sworn testimony about how she handled baby Matthew Eappen during an interview with a polygraph examiner, according to a review of court records.
A number of people suggested corrected versions. What follows is my suggestion. I'll warn you that a number of people on the list, particularly those from Britain and New Zealand, were terrifically offended by this offering. On the other hand, a lot of people loved it, and a couple of them recommended I send it along to you.)
Louise Woodward leaned back in her chair like an Eskimo sliding into in a
hot tub, a cigar clamped in her teeth like a walleye in a mousetrap. The
laugh that escaped from her throat was half purr, half growl, and as warm
as San Antonio in August, but behind those silty blue lashes her eyes were
as cold as a hospitalization insurance claim reviewer's heart. With a
murmur of silk, she crossed one leg over the other, and the needle on my
polygraph wasn't the only thing that jumped. Later on, in court, she would
deny it, but the way she kept tossing that baby from hand to hand gave it
away: Ms Ice Maiden was as nervous as a nun at a nudist camp. Smoke curled
around her shoulders like a ferret. Cuban cigar smoke. This babe wasn't
kidding when she said she was friends with the pope.
[Contributor: Kristine Batey, Northwestern University]
This is from a student publication which, unfortunately, I lost. This "novel" was one of those overwrought fantasy deals where there's an eternal struggle between the angelic blond brother, the "Light One," and his demonic, black-haired twin, "the Dark One." Light hair? Dark Hair? Twins? You mean the way Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny De Vito are twins? This guy needed a continuity assistant big time, since on one page, a sword would be iron, and on the next, gold. He also wrote such gems as, "The dark trees crouched on the barren landscape."
But the sentence that I will take to the grave is this one:
"His priest-blessed sword was forged in the boiling feces of the Damned."
It's a classic.
[Contributor: Amy Bown, Rochester]
Bad published writing? My own personal accolade (?) goes to the
novelization of Murder By Death, a wonderfully funny movie (with a
notably good script by Neil Simon) which was unfortunately given to some
fellow named Henry Keating to do with as he pleased. A few excerpts
from the first chapter:
"Lionel Twain, eighteenth richest man in the world--no, sorry,
seventeenth: reports have just come in of the unfortunate decease of
the current No. 17, who had triplet heirs--the seventeenth richest man
in the world, flung the book he had just finished all the way from one
end of his library to the other."
Which is what I felt like doing to Murder By Death. If there is one
thing Strunk, White, and I agree on, it's keeping to a single tense
unless there's a damn reason not to.
"In the viewing room at No. 22 Lionel Twain watched the three of them
set out, Dick carrying his martini bravely before him, Dora hugging her
wow of a dress closely around her--not that it was possible for it to be
much closer in most places--and Myron trotting along at the end of his
leash. Inspired perhaps by Dick's noble example, Twain rang for Benson
and a large martini, with olive."
I will give him points for parallel structure. Not many, but a few.
Um?
"Only his clothes were not the epitome of Old China, consisting as they did of a dark suit of conservative cut, a good thick topcoat of
guaranteed antifog qualities with a solid black derby to keep the cold from the all-important head area."
Even aside from the puzzling question of how the derby was attached to
the topcoat, this just scares me.
Another book presumably written on controlled substances and printed by
close relatives of the author: Simon Hawke's The Ambivalent Magician.
The author places himself into the narrative and concludes somewhat
hastily (though none too soon) with a note from his psychiatrist,
stating that he has had a nervous breakdown from the resulting
existential paradoxes. I nearly had one too, but that should be
construed as no compliment. The worst cop-out ending since "Then I woke
up--it had all been a horrible dream--or HAD IT???"
[Contributor: Lindsay Jones, Iowa City]
This comes from a 1927 edition of The Princess and the Goblin, by George Macdonald.
"One very wet day, when the mountain was covered with mist which was constantly gathering itself together into rain-drops, and pouring down on the
roofs of the great old house, whence it fell in a fringe of water from the eaves all around it, the princess could not of course go out. She got very tired, so tired that even her toys could no longer amuse her. You would wonder at that if I had time to describe to you one half of the toys she had. But then you wouldn't have the toys themselves, and that makes all the difference; you can't get tired of a thing before you have it. It was a picture, though, worth seeing--the princess sitting in the nursery with the sky-ceiling over her head, at a great table covered with her toys. If the artist would like to draw this, I should
advise him not to meddle with the toys. I am afraid of attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to draw them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things
I can't, but I don't think he could draw those toys. No man could better make the princess herself than he could, though-- leaning with her back bowed into the back of the chair, her head banging down, and her hands in her lap, very miserable as she would say herself, and not even knowing what she would like, except to go out and get very wet, catch a particularly nice cold, and have to go to bed and take gruel. The next moment after you see her sitting there, her nursegoes out of the room."
Why does this author feel it is so important that he tell us, several times, that he is writing this story for us to read? Do we really need to know this?
[Kate Johnston, Sunnyvale, CA]
I would like to propose a new category for entertainment of the masses,
College Course Catalog Copy, and offer a real entry as an example:
127Q-128Q. General Chemistry
Either semester. Four credits. Three class periods and one 3-hour
laboratory period. (Students who have passed CHEM 137 or
153 may take CHEM 128.) (Students who have passed CHEM 122 will receive
only 2 credits for CHEM 127 but 4 credits will be
used for calculating QPR scores. A student who has a very high standing
in CHEM 122 may be permitted, with the consent of the
instructor, to take CHEM 128 without 127.) CHEM 127 is not open for
credit to students who have passed CHEM 129 or 137 or
153; and CHEM 128 is not open to students who have passed CHEM 130 or
138 or 154.
This course is designed to provide a foundation for more advanced
courses in chemistry. The topics covered include the atomic
theory, the laws and theories concerning the physical and chemical
behavior of gases, liquids, solids, and solutions. The properties
of some of the more familiar elements and their compounds are discussed.
The laboratory work in the first semester involves
quantitative measurements illustrating the laws of chemical combination
. In the second semester particular attention is given to
equilibrium in solutions and to the qualitative reactions of the common
cations and anions.
May this inspire the creative juices of more curriculum committees.
[Contributor: Dr. Thomas R. Burkholder, Department of Chemistry, Central Connecticut State University]
From The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. The heroine is in trouble:
"Oh, think! think! think! of what she should do."
"Wait! wait! wait! how long?"
"No! No! No! No! Oh, God in heaven! this cannot be!"
All sentences occur within two pages.
Despite her inability to articulate extreme fear, Baroness Orczy remains a
shining example of what you can accomplish with a self-indulgent,
overwritten prose style -- but a great plot.
[Contributor: Lee Clinch, San Francisco]
I can't claim responsibility for discovering this sentence; I merely found
it on a web site of a fan of the author, and have not had the opportunity to
see the book. However, this particular sentence so closely resembled a
Bulwer-Lytton contest entry that I felt an obligation to warn Dr. Rice of
this author's existence, lest anyone should attempt to submit this sentence
- or another from this author's works - as his own.
For it must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally,
concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney-talking Englishman with the
checkered long-beaked Sherlockholmsian cap; nor of the latter's "Barr-Bag"
which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another;
nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and her six arms; nor of
Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive
poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2163 pearl
buttons; nor of--in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or
anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless
perchance it were my Nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwümpel--or Suing Sophie!
[Contributor: John Savard, Edmonton]
Here's one for ya!
From the Harlequin Superromance Nobody Does it Better by Jan Freed
"She stuck to his prime-grade A tush like shrink-wrap to a rump roast."
[Contributor: Shannon Walker, Belmont, CA]
I came across a good one in the Southern Reporter (Scottish Borders
local paper).
"Prince Charles will be paying a surprise visit to the Borders next
month."
--
[Contributor: Damian Sharp, Scotland]
Inspired by this site about appalling excuses for literature, I went and dug out the cheesiest horror novel I could find in the hope of discovering some humerous literary blunders. Class Trip, by the curiously-named author Bebe Faas Rice, yeilded two examples of note:
"Knowing Christabel..., it was obvious that she had mixed up somehow in James's emotional breakdown. If she hadn't been, she would have had no problem airing James's dirty laundry."
Curious. Apparently, James's emotional state is linked to the cleanliness of his clothing.
Take note also of this little gem:
"Ron was acting like an entirely different person from the one I was used to seeing at school. Christabel's put-downs were getting to him, cutting him off at the knees and leaving him off balance and uncertain."
Well, I'm no expert, but I imagine cutting someone's legs off below the knees leaves them slightly more than off balance.
[Contributor: Philip Alderman, U.K.]
"To understand why the house makes so much money at the craps table, you
first have to understand why."--Roger Gros, How to Win at Casino Gambling,
Carlton Books (1996) p.74
I realise this doesn't qualify as literature (even bad literature) but I think it is important to recognise contributions to the bleeding obvious from all types of writing.
[Contributor: Stephen Hart, Sydney, Australia]
After reading the examples of bad prose now being listed, I chanced upon the following passage in a horror novel entitled The Night Seasons by J. N. Williamson, who is touted on the cover as a grandmaster of horror. I'm unfamiliar with this fellow's work, but this is truly scary writing:
"With a cockeyed sense of elation and drunken mission, I stumbled down the apartment steps and lurched out of the front door of the building. Perspiration clouded my vision along with alcohol, and the slanting parking space lines in the parking lot were making me dizzy. I located my '79 Omni (so undesirable it could be safely left anywhere - nobody even seemed to want its parts) in the late-night darkness that was like thick, malefic, homemade jelly."
Every sentence is richly deserving of comment. First, what is a "cockeyed sense of elation?" The second sentence makes it sound as though perspiration is clouding the alcohol, and includes the acutely inept
phrase "parking space lines in the parking lot." The parenthetical observations about the '79 Omni are add nothing to the picture and are redundant. And finally, my favorite, "malefic, homemade jelly." Is that
Satan's family recipe?
[Contributor: Rick Gilbert, Lexington, MA]
"We stopped for a light and I saw a young woman give her ration book to a woman who wore a flowered housedress in exchange for a ten-dollar bill."
[Contributor: Joyce Gero Truro, Nova Scotia, Canada]
In my continuing search for bad writing, my attention fell upon that bastion of children's literature, Enid Blyton. I'm easily amused.
She tucked the little thing under her fur coat and only its quaint little pointed nose looked out. The four children, watching from the window of the waiting-room, thought it was a little dear!
Since when did you describe a dog's nose as "quaint"? Note also that the children are convinced that the dog is expensive ("dear").
The new-comers made such a stir and commotion that the four children came out of the waiting-room to watch. Everyone was very hilarious.
Everyone was very hilarious?? Unusual turn of phrase, Mrs. Blyton. Using similar methodology, you could describe a tree as being Very Growing, or a car as being Very Moving. I'm not sure whether this counts as bad writing or just poor proof-reading, but it caught my attention.
Nyssa touched Tegan on the shoulder and said quietly:'Tegan
...I don't know what's happening to the Doctor - none of us
understands it. But I do know that panicking is no use.'
Nyssa touched Tegan on the shoulder and said quietly:'Tegan
...I don't know what's happening to the Doctor - none of us
understands it. But I do know that panicking is no use.'
Hmm. 'Nuff said.
[Contributor: Philip Alderman, Luton, the UK]
I thought you might appreciate this for the "Sticks and Stones" page. From The Lion in the Valley: An Amelia Peabody Mystery by Elizabeth Peters (1986):
"The blood that had abandoned her countenance rushed into his."
A very interesting transfusion, at any rate!
[Contributor: Laura Sauer, Vernon, CT]
Some true literary atrocities have been committed by nature writers. Here's a particularly horrible example from Hummingbirds of North America: Attracting, Feeding, and Photographing Them, by former TV weatherman Dan True
(author of What Do Women Want from Men?), published in 1993 by University of New Mexico Press:
"Since then I have learned of a very good but very expensive commercial hummingbird mix for sick hummingbirds from Germany used by the San Diego zoo called Necton."
It's a pity that most of the book is at least marginally more readable than this, because there are more scientific inaccuracies in this one slim volume than in the last 20 years worth of books on hummingbirds. Though True makes many mistakes of his own, a substantial number of errors lie in extensive passages quoted from outdated sources. Maps of hummingbird distribution bear suspicious resemblances to those a fairly recent, reputable work (with their original captions largely intact, though nonsensical in their new context). One of the most astonishing parts of this work is its bibliography, specifically this self-referential citation:
True, D. 1993. A history of hummingbird feeders. Hummingbirds of North America: Attracting, Feeding, and
Photographing Them. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Such a monstrosity cannot be the work of just one man; only through spectacular editorial incompetence could this work achieve such depths. One has to hope that the editor wasn't a product of the University of New Mexico's English
Department.
[Contributor: Sheri Williamson, Bisbee, Arizona]
[#39]
Larissa MacFarquhar launches her interview with Nicolas Cage in "Stranger in
Paradise" in Premiere Magazine (June 1997) with:
"Three little wrinkles like a stack of tiny pancakes sit just at the top of
Nicolas Cage's nose, held in place by his bushy, Italian-guy eyebrows, which
extend out and down like two hairy arms around his for-the-moment strangely
vacant blue eyes."
[Contributor: Name withheld, San Francisco]
You want bad writing - I got bad writing. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you. Star Trek-- First Frontier by Diane Carey and Dr James I Kirkland. Doctor Kirkland is credited as the dinosaur expert, since the story is set on prehistoric earth. I hesitate to guess what Ms Carey's field of expertise may be, since it certainly isn't writing clear, literate English prose. The book is littered with cherishable errors - at a rate of one or two biggies every four or five pages. Particular favourites include a resolute refusal to use the phrase "He (or she) said" if at all possible. So we have:
Kirk clipped, Chekov bolted. (While not moving from his seat), he
malaised, Kirk distilled....., he resigned (While not going anywhere)
Kirk impugned.
Though see Chapter 29 (below) for my all time favourite.
Chapter 23 starts with the entirely incomprehensible sentence: "Head down into the storm they went, pressing barehanded to their chests an
unshielded sense of peril."
There are so many pleasing subjects for speculation here. How does a group of humanoids have multiple chests but only one head? Do you sometimes need gloves to press unshielded senses of peril to your chest? Do senses of perils usually come shielded and they took the shield off, or did they put a shield on and then took it off afterwards? And if so, why?
But all these pale into insignificance before the panoply of riches which is Chapter 29.
We have a Klingon who "gazed up at Kirk with roguish languor."
A dinosaur described as a "shriven corpse on the floor." As I Catholic, I find it curiously reassuring to know that Confession was available to
prehistoric reptiles. A human is endowed with a twenty-foot arm. (apparently only the one, though) and the best of the "he said" alternatives.
"Pushing, Kirk under-girded, "But........"
And I haven't even mentioned the rest of the book : Kirk leering at the bridge screen, the seconds that went by like surgical time (faster? slower?) the chap who cloyed to his work, Kirk reeling with respect for someone, disinterest used for uninterest, Kirk's surfeiting nod, vilification used as a synonym for hatred, and disdained for despised.
BTW What happened to the sarky comments on The Eye of Argon? They were
the best bits.
[Contributor: C Carter, North Yorkshire, England]
[#41]
Sacrifice of Isaac, by Neil Gordon (Bantam Books)
Although I managed to finish this 300+ page novel, the whole thing was written so awkwardly that I just felt compelled to highlight some of the more glaring examples:
"She wore a sleeveless black leotard that showed shoulders sloping from a fine, long neck; small, round breasts; a firm stomach above womanly - not
girlish - hips."
After telling us her hips are womanly, do we really need to be told they
aren't girlish?
"The walls were covered with glass cases of the the sort that might have housed a lawyer's Napoleonic Code in a story by Balzac but that showcased,
instead, a variety of small objects; a polyurethane-cased page of illuminated manuscript, an alabaster swallow, a copper kohl vial on which Luke recognized the fluid curves of Arabic script."
Who cares what they MIGHT have housed?!
"This time he answered in heavily-accented English. 'Business, my dear.'"
Then in French again, as if she were an old friend: "Like Count
Mippipopolous? With his arrow wounds?" It happened that she had read The Sun
Also Rises and remembered the count well."
Good for her, what about us? Please, this literary name-dropping ("Gee, he's
read Balzac AND Hemingway") is irritating instead of impressive . . . And
shouldn't "count" have a capital "C"?
"Later, the sun rising to noon height, another reality - the yang of Nicole's yin - introduced itself."
Huh?
"Nor, she thought, could they see the very Benami-esque courage they carried into their strange rebellions."
Call me a wet blanket, but something about turning a surname into an adjective just seems pretentious . . .
[Contributor: S. Pearson, S. Korea]
[#42]
I present the following, even though it is not technically published writing, on the grounds that it may well explain some of the other contributions to "Sticks & Stones." It comes from a rejection letter I received recently from a literary agent, Core Creations, LLC.
"Though potentially marketable, due to fierce competition not enough of us here were enthusiastic about your material to validate an offer of
representation at this time. If you write something else, feel free to consider us again."
Of course, it has the merit of being the only rejection letter I've ever received that made me feel as if I'd just dodged a bullet. Like everyone else who reads, however, I must sleep at night knowing that there is apparently a potential market for people who write like nitwits, and their job is screening manuscripts. Or validating offers of representation,
whatever that means.
[Contributor: Doris Dungey, Des Moines, IA]
[#43]
This isn't nice. The guy who used to run the parking lot at the newspaper where I work had a book published in 1984 by a vanity press. The title was catchy: 'Beg Before You Die.' It was a Mickey Spillane-tough-detective genre book, set somewhere in the southwest. It got off to a really bad start, though, with an opening paragraph that left you wondering what was going on:
''It was a long hot drive this afternoon, I was telling Kay, who was sitting with her back against the right front door, her nicely tanned left leg under
her; the back of her right knee was swinging back and forth off her instep, keeping a sort of tempo with the soft music that was coming over the car radio.''
He goes off his narrative halfway through the first sentence, getting tangled in the contortions of Kay, the pretzel lady, and finishing with a desperate appeal to the reader: Look! This car has a radio!
By page 10, the protagonist and Kay have pulled into a drive-in to eat. Among other features perfectly irrelevant to the story is the presence of a Mexican-American carhop. After eating ( '' 'The chicken is delicious,' I said.'') Kay changes out of shorts and into a dress in the back seat of the car. Although it has nothing to do with story or character, the author evidently felt that what happened next was a roaringly funny scene and had to be included:
''The carhop came over to the car and asked if we would care for anything else. '' 'No thanks!' ''Then it dawned on her. The first two trips the girl had made to the car, Kay had been in the shorts and halter and now she was fully dressed. She
must have thought she had drunk too much tequila.''
[Contributor: Dave Matheny, Ramsey, Minnesota]
[#44]
Edgar Rice Burroughs is a natural Bulwer-Lyttonian. The opening
sentence to Synthetic Men of Mars seems to me a close stylistic
match to our hero's archetypical evocation of nocturnal tempestuousness
by virtue of the hydrological subject matter and the curious blending
of the melodramatic and the quotidian.
From Phundahl at their western extremity, east to Toonol,
the Great Toonolian Marshes stretch across the dying planet
for eighteen hundred earth miles like some unclean,
venomous, Gargantuan reptile - an oozy marshland through
which wind narrow watercourses connecting occasional bodies
of open water, little lakes, the largest of which covers
but a few acres.
[Contributor: Lew Mammel, Jr., Wheaton, Illinois]
[#45]
Generally, if I don't like a book I stop reading it. Doom: Hell On Earth by
Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver, however, was an exception. I work in the
computer game industry, and since this is a novelization of a computer game,
someone thought I wanted it. I did in a way. It's the most consistently bad
piece of writing I've ever encountered.
There are too many examples to quote--you could pretty much include the
entire book. This one is a favorite, though:
"The truck stuck close to our bumper through the totally porous checkpoint.
After that, we just drove in typical L.A. style, weaving drunkenly between
zombie-driven trucks, leaning on our horn, all the time heading for the ever
popular LAX. I wanted to give the airport the biggest laxitive it had ever
had with Lemon Marine Suppositories. Cleans out those unsightly monsters
every time!"
One wonders how often the staff at LAX gives the airport a laxitive to make
the planes take off more smoothly. And why the Marine Suppositories are
flavored.
[Contributor: Steve Honeywell, De Kalb, IL]
[#46]
Colin Dexter, The Secret of Annexe 3 (one of the Inspector Morse novels).
"Soon the two friends were seated facing each other in the lounge
bar, the surgeon resting his heavy-looking dolichocephalic skull upon
his left hand."
"But these minor worries could hardly compare with the consternation
caused on the Monopoly front by a swift-fingered checker-out from a
Bedford supermarket whose palm was so extraordinarily speedy in the
recovery of the two dice thrown from the cylindrical cup that her
opponents had little option but to accept, without ever seeing the
slightest evidence, her instantaneously enunciated score, and then to
watch helplessly as this sharp-faced woman moved her little counter
along the board to whichever square seemed of the greatest potential
profit to her entrepeneurial designs."
"She could recall, quite certainly, clearing away after the soup
course; picking up the supernumary spoons and forks that marked the
place of that pusillanimous spirit from Solihull, Doris Arkwright;
standing by in the kitchen as a Pork Normandy had slithered off its
plate to the floor, to be replaced thither after a perfunctory wipe;
drinking a third cocktail; dancing with the Lord High Executioner;
eating two helpings of the gateau in the kitchen; dancing, in the dim
light of the ballroom, a sort of chiaroscuro cha-cha-cha with the
mysterious 'Rastafarian' - the latter having been adjudged the winner
of the men's fancy-dress prize; telling Binyon not to be so silly
when he'd broached the proposition of a brief dive beneath the duvet
in her temporary quarters; drinking a fourth cocktail, the colour of
which she could no longer recall; feeling slightly sick; walking up
the stairs to her bedroom before the singing of 'Auld Lang Syne';
feeling very sick; and finally finding herself in bed.
I think these sum up the faults of Dexter's writing: inappropriately
complex words, archaicisms and over-long sentences. Dexter - via
Morse - often pushes on the reader his prescriptive views on grammar
and spelling, and seems to come from the school of writing that views
pomposity as clever and stylish.
[Contributor: Ray Girvan, Topsham, Devon, UK]
Do you accept bad sentences from non-fiction books? Here are two from The University in Ruins, by Bill Readings, 1996:
"Hence, Shakespeare, not the Greeks, is positioned by the English as the
prelapsarian moment of a spontaneous immediate organic culture that the
nation-state must seek to regain by means of the rational mediation of
University education."
"First of all, the British proletariat is not the product of a
theorization of the effects of industrial society by a Communist Party,
is not born like Athena from the head of Zeus with the Communist Party
as midwife."
An awkward and an unlearned simile: Athena's midwife was Hephaestus,
who brought her into the world by taking an axe to Zeus' skull. If
Readings had completed the simile, he might have a clue to why the
English workers have chosen to disappoint Marx's plans for them.
[Contributor: Mark O'Bannon, New Orleans]
Here's something short and terrible that you may like to consider for the
Sticks and Stones section:
"He looked at me with his bottomless-cup-of-coffee eyes."
Pg. 154 (hardcover edition) The Flower Master by Sujata Massey.
[Contributor: Scarlett Pearson]
While researching a biology project, I began leafing through a science library periodical collection. Therein, I found a few volumes of a nineteenth century public health journal, Sanitarian, one of which housed a very insightful article on the prevention of constipation, written by a physician whose name I don't recall. It's probably better that way, considering the degree to which he waxed romantic at the end. I enclose his final paragraph for your edification and entertainment.
"And on the field of battle which preventive medicine is now and
everywhere waging against the ills to which flesh is heir, the banner of
preventive constipation is well at the front. Indeed I feel confident and
I do greatly rejoice in this assurance, that when the enthusiastic
physician who is ever loyal to the guild, who keeps her escutcheon fair
and stainless, who is ever jealous of her honor, shall proudly make
mention of her achievements and will not then be omitted."
Keep in mind, this writer is discussing constipation. All the flowery
words in the world won't change that, no matter what he may think.
[Contributor: Bronwyn Foley, Middletown, CT]
With listeners leaning over the velvet restraining ropes and angling for
pictures, John Glenn urged them to remember Shepard's 1961 Redstone flight
in its political context, when the Soviet Union was seducing world opinion
with the lingerie of Earth-orbiting technology.
Sputnik lingerie? Kinky!
[Contributor: L. Lohrli-Kirk, Costa Mesa, CA]
[#51]
How about this passage from Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book For Girls And
Boys as an example of conciseness and accuracy in writing?
"I can hardly tell how many of these small people there were; not less than
nine or ten, however no more than a dozen of all sorts, sizes, and ages,
whether girls or boys."
Yet after saying this, Hawthorne goes on to name the unspecified number of
children with exactly twelve names. So, first there might be nine children;
then there might be ten; but there were certainly no more than twelve --
until finally, he breaks down and gives us their twelve names; and these
names, he goes on to tell us, are not their real names, etc., etc. Hawthorne
then rambles on at great length about the imaginary names of his unnumbered
children for several hundred words -- and all of this in the six page
"Introductory" to THE GORGON'S HEAD. Let's say what we mean, and mean what
we say, Nate! And let's pick up the pace a little -- and I don't mean
pecante sauce!
[Contributor: Steven M. Ruppert, Colorado Springs, CO]
This comes from Elizabeth Peters' Crocodile on the Sandbank, a mystery
set in Egypt in the late 1880's. Our protagonist has woken from a troubled sleep to discover a hooded cobra on the foot of her bed.
"With a desparate effort I wrenched my eyes from the hypnotic glare of
the snake. I rolled them toward the door. I dared move no further."
She is saved when the hero shoots the snake. No mention of how she
retrieved her eyes.
[Contributor: Liz Henderson, Durham, NC]
I nominate All Through the Night by Mary Higgins Clark as an example of one
of the worst pieces of fiction ever published. It is worthy of mention in "Sticks & Stones." The characterization is two-dimensional (at best), the dialogue is laughable, and the novel is one cliche after another. The only redeeming factor about the novel is that it should give aspiring writers hope, because if this novel can make it into print and even make it to the New York Times best-seller's list, anything can! The following passage is my favorite example of the cliches that fill the book:
Tracy tossed his slim folder on Lenny Centino back on the desk. "Well, now
that he's back, I'm going to keep my eye on him. If I see him with that
little girl, I may just bring him in. He'll make a mistake eventually, and
when he does, I intend to be there."
[Contributor: Robert Villanueva, Radcliff, KY]
This gem is from Barbara Taylor Bradford´s Voice of the Heart: 771 pages of sludge-like purple prose:
An ineffable tranquility hovered over the villa, was broken only occasionally by the intermittent sounds of the staff going about their duties: the whirr of the vacuum, the faint birdlike chirpings of the maids as they dusted adjacent rooms, the echo of the butler´s brisk tones issuing orders, the click of a door closing, the patter of distant busy feet. Gradually these individual noises were beginning to merge, flowed together to create a vague and muffled hum that hardly intruded at all on her gentle peregrinations through the labyrinth of her mind.
[Contributor: Nicole Simard, Bramalea, Ontario]
Here's another entry for the "Sticks & Stones" section which may or may not
be interesting. From the mystery thriller The Plague Stone by Gillian White. Not a bad read, but her similes are wretched:
Pg. 81: "Marian's strained face beamed rays of anxiety like a sickly
sun"
Pg. 82: "She wanted to pick her heart up like a naughty toddler and take
it outside and smack it until it stopped leaping about like
this"
I'd like to pick the author up like a naughty child and do the same . . .
Pg 89, referring to the town hall:
"Today it was in its starkest state . . . naked and waiting like a woman with wet hair sitting dull and expectant before the
stylist"
[Contributor: Scarlett Pearson, Montreal, Quebec]
I was reading the technical manual for a camera mount and found this little gem. Presumably the translator got paid for the work. The system is installed and works beautifully in spite of my inability to follow instructions.
"If don't mount on the pan/tilt head, provide the mounting screws in speciality for it. Select the mounting screws with taking into consideration." Panasonic
[Contributor: David Yeamans, Los Alamos, New Mexico]
Ah, come on. You people have no idea. :-) The all-time worst piece of
fiction ever published is Vampire Beat by Vincent Courtney. You can
literally pick a page at random and find something to howl at. I'll demonstrate, but first I have to warm you up with the book's opening:
"The knife was poised above her heart. Her screams cut through the dead,
rotten air of the warehouse. Batiste Legendre smiled. He bent down and
soul-kissed the terrified eighteen-year-old who was to remain that age
forever."
Okay, literally at random here:
Page 134: "The Happy Christian bookshop was a quaint little place that
catered to the born-again faction of the community." (Funny, with a name
like that I'd have thought they were aiming at the Muslim market.)
"Religious artifacts and books cluttered the shelves." (So *that's* where I
put that Shroud of Turin! Always the last place you look.) "The store had a
rosy cinammon smell from the potpourri of cinnamon and rose petals in a
wicker basket that hung from the ceiling."
(You don't say...how odd.)
Page 186: "Fear grabbed her by the throat. It was the car, the green sedan,
the same one which had taken her on her nightmare journey the night before!"
(Ah, thanks for reminding us about that nightmare journey--otherwise it
might have slipped our minds while we were busy wondering what's gotten into
Fear lately. And for cluing us in to the fact that sedans are a type of
car.)
Same page: "It was as though she was trying to slog through mud that was up to her shins--thick, clinging mud that sapped the life out of her legs.
Behind her she could hear the raspy breathing of her pursuer. 'Come on,
baby, the master is waiting. He wants to hold you,' he wheezed. 'He wants to
kiss you. He wants to drink all your blood!'"(Well. The only comment I can
offer is, 'When there's life-sapping metaphorical mud to contend with, who
worries about vampires?')
Page 98: "He had a haunted look about him, as though he had a horrible
secret he was trying to conceal." (Trying, but obviously not succeeding.
This in reference to the vampire character, of course.) "Brown froze the
smile on Carver's face with his steely glare." (He could have used his icy
glare instead, but decided that would be too obvious.)
I'm not making this up. I would also gladly nominate Vampire Beat for a
Worst Cover Art Ever contest, if such a thing ever comes into being . . .
[Contributor: Sarah Roark, Redmond, WA]
"Maximus wheeled his horse at the end of the stadium and started back
toward two chariots bearing down on him in staggered formation. They
sped toward each other much like Medieval jousters." From Gladiator, by
Dewey Gram, Onyx Books.
Beam him aboard, Scotty. Maximus is caught in a time warp.
[Contributor: Mary Ann Unger, New Jersey]
You literary sorts have no idea what burdens we newspaper writers have
to bear. This is the lead paragraph from a press release from Fort Hood,
our nation's largest military installation.
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS: ARMY DEVELOPS APPLICATION FOR WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT COALITION
June 14, 2000
The U. S. Army announced today the Program Manager (PM), Joint
Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistics Support (JCALS), as a member of
the
Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), has developed an eXtensible Markup
Language (XML) application specification (www.aiim.org/wfmc/) to
facilitate
workflow interoperability. In addition to having served as coordinators
and
editors of the new Wf-XML specification for the WfMC, PM JCALS is
developing one of the first production implementations of Wf-XML for a
US
Army Communications-Electronics Command customer. Several integration
efforts already underway within JCALS plan to use the Wf-XML standard to
interface with remote workflow engines, as well as be the basis for
future
workflow integration efforts.
[Contributor: J.B. Smith, Waco Tribune-Herald, Waco, Texas]
[#60]
The first two are really examples of bad proofreading rather than bad
writing; the third will be somewhat controversial.
1) In the novel Star Trek: Klingon, on page 71, Commander Riker asks
Captain Picard, who has just put the ship on Red Alert until further
notice: "Percussion only. Or do you expect trouble?"
Now, ignoring the fact that it should be a question mark rather than a
period between the two sentences, somebody obviously ran a badly-spelled
attempt at "Precaution" through a spell-checker, and took the
suggestion, "Percussion."
My girlfriend suggests that it's a shame that they didn't further err by
changing "trouble" to "treble."
2) This is a letter to the editor that appeared in the St. Louis Post
Dispatch some years ago, as its subject matter (the book"The Bell
Curve, by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein) would indicate. Now,
I'm not slamming the writer of the letter; he is (presumably, hopefully)
not someone who makes his living by writing. I am, however, slamming
whoever was responsible for proofreading and editing the letters page;
normally, letters to the editor do not get printed verbatim, at least,
not if they need editing as badly as this one did:
"The book, The Bell Curve, by Charles Murray and Richard
Herrnstein, is a faulty continuation of a myth. I'm surprised such a
study can be taken so seriously.
"Murray and Herrnstein's first mistake is reliance on IQ tests.
Haven't we explored this fallacy thoroughly enough? IQ tests are not
scientific and have little value in judging intelligence. The creator of
the IQ test, German psychologist W. Stern, wrote in his introduction
that these tests should not be given to black children. Stern obviously
knew what Murray and Herrnstein never admit -- IQ tests are written for
white children and adults because environment plays such an important
equation.
"The second mistake and perhaps the most injurious one by the
Murray-Herrnstein team is that the difference in IQ is genetic. Since
when are these two certified as geneticists? What could they possibly
know about genetics except the flawed finding of researchers who fit
their mode of thinking?
Genetics is still a new science. Down syndrome and the defective
gene for dyslexia have just recently been explored.Genetics has a long
way to go before it can tell us anything about intelligence or the lack
thereof between blacks and whites.
If, as Murray and Herrnstein assert, most Americans are between the
middle range IQ, then what is the point? And if it's genetic, why are
there whites who can't even read the theory Murray and Herrnstein have
written.
Murray readily admits that the purpose of the book is to justify the
elimination of welfare and affirmative action programs because the low
IQs of blacks is in their genes and therefore can never be altered to
justify the expensive of such social programs.
We all need to dismiss and destroy this inauspicious theory, which
will injure so many who are not capable of understanding its
implications. 'The Bell Curve' is 850 pages of sloppy research. Any
study that would not appropriate environment as a factor in intelligence
should be repudiated on its very face."
Ow. My brain hurts. I'd go into detail as to what was wrong with
that, but I don't care to spend more than another hour or so.
3) Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. Many people seem to feel that his
language is gorgeous and evocative; I just found it badly overdone.
Obviously, I can't quote ALL the Bulwer-Lyttonesqe passages from the
book, so what I'm going to do is this: I'm going to RANDOMLY flip it
open to a pair of pages, and scan. I guarantee that I can find a
paragraph that would be competitive in the BLFC.
pp.60-61: "Immediately afterward (as if we had been struggling and now my
grip had eased) she rolled off the sofa and jumped to her feet -- to her
foot, rather -- in order to attend to the formidably loud telephone that
may have been ringing for ages as far as I was concerned. There she
stood and blinked, cheeks aflame, hair awry, her eyes passing over me
lightly as they did over the furniture, and as she listened or spoke (to
her mother who was telling her to come to lunch with her at the
Chatfields -- neither Lo nor Hum knew yet what busybody Haze was
plotting), she kept tapping the edge of the table with the slipper she
held in her hand."
Seek on any random pair of pages in the book, and you'll find an
equally convoluted and Bulwer-Lyttonesque sentence or two.
[Contributor: Jim Yanni, St. Louis, MO]
[#61]
This is a rather obscure reference; the book is a sci-fi pulp novel that
is (doubtless long) out of print, titled Assassins From Tomorrow, by
Peter Heath. The story is a tale of how president Kennedy was actually
assassinated by time travelers (at least, that's what the dust-jacket
says; I'm 83 pages in out of a total of 160, and I've seen very little
hint of this) and it is, in general, about as bad as you might expect.
But ignoring, for the moment, the fact that the plot is silly, the
characters one-dimensional, and the writing style about what one would
expect in a pulp written in 1967. there have been a couple of notable
errors:
on page 81, the main character is erecting a gadget that will help to
save the day, and we are faced with this passage: "The noon sun was
starting to blister the back of his neck before the last connection was
soldered. All that remained was to connect the four large aircraft
batteries to the terminals of the transmitter and reciever. That could
wait until later. The next thing to do was to set up the dish
antenna . . ."
If "all that remained" was (A), then presumably, the next thing to do
should not be (B).
Then, on page 83, a shark is being shot. ". . . soon, more bullets were chewing into the hides of the killer fish."
They may have been chewing into the shark's SIDES, or its HIDE. But
unless I'm very mistaken, most sharks only have one HIDE.
[Contributor: Jim Yanni, St. Louis, MO]
[#62]
This is from the advance reading copy of Ladies with Options, by Cynthia
Hartwick, to be published in February 2001.
"Agnes liked her job too much and carried it with her. She was like a human
LEGO display--loveable but provoking."
A true gem, I'm sure, if we could ever figure out what was loveable or
provoking about a display of plastic toy building blocks.
[Contributor: Lisa, Rialto, California]
[#63]
About ten years ago I bought a copy of The Gate to Women's Country by
Sherri S. Tepper to while away the time on a two-hour ferry ride. I read
the first few pages and after recovering from my laughter I spent the
rest of the ride walking out on the decks. I don't know if the book
itself is any good, I've never been able to get past the beginning. Here
is the opening paragraph.
"Stavia saw herself as in a picture, from the outside, a darkly cloaked
figure moving along a cobbled street, the stones sheened with a soft
early spring rain. On either side the gutters ran with an infant chuckle
and gurgle, baby streams being amused with themselves. The corniced
buildings smiled candlelit windows across at one another, their
shoulders huddled protectively inward - though not enough to keep the
rain from streaking the windows and making the candlelight seem the
least bit weepy, a luxurious weepiness, as after a two-hanky drama of
love lost or unrequited."
I could comment on every sentence but I'll keep it short. How can the
candlelight be the least bit weepy and luxuriously weepy at the same
time. And if you need to use a second hanky because the first is too wet
then you ain't weeping, you're crying your eyes out.
This prose goes on as far as I have gotten into the book but I'll only
add the third paragraph here.
"Stavia the observer noted particularly the quality of the light. Dusk.
Gray of cloud and shadowed green of leaf. It was apt, this light -- well
done for the mood of the piece. Nostalgic. Melancholy without being
utterly depressing. A few crepuscular rays broke through the western
cloud cover in long, mysterious beams, as though they were searchlights
from a celestial realm, seeking a lost angel perhaps or some escaped
soul from Hades trying desperately to find the road to heaven. Or
perhaps they were casting about to find a fishing boat, out there on the
darkling sea, though she could not immediately think of a reason that
the heavenly ones should need a fishing boat."
[Contribitor: Ray Dornan, Langley, B.C., Canada]
[#64]
"All who knew Yas, knew Yas was freakin'."
By Ron Bracle, Beyond the Known.
Yes, Yas is one pretty freakin' guy, people doubted, and angel hair socks.
Now that makes sense. If you turn to just about any page in the book you will
find sentences just like these. In fact, I have only found two sentences that
made any sense at all in the whole book.
[Contributor: A. McCollum, Ohio]
[#65] Two more examples of competition-class Bulwer-Lyttony, cunningly impenetrable prose from The Cunning of
Unreason: Making Sense of Politics by Cambridge political theorist John Dunn:
"For most of the last two hundred years, it has been natural (and perhaps reasonable) to suppose that the root of
these disagreements lies in a conflict of intuition about the imaginative and material basis of political authorization,
on what (if anything) could rationally entitle some humans to command others so decisively, and what might
imaginatively impel the latter to concede that this was reasonable."
This passage could be replaced with a simple declarative sentence: "Politics involves deciding who is in charge."
"The modern republic is a passive local implementation device of a global and utterly humanly uncontrollable
collective madness. It sustains a façade of local (and human) control, and by doing so facilitates and reinforces the
profound corruption of human purpose which has always lent such force to the market, and which by now has
fashioned a world in which almost anything is openly for sale."
Huh? [Contributor: Michael P. Morley, Akron, Ohio]
[#66] From Triangle by Irene Pence. True crime book about a man who killed his girlfriend's lesbian lover and stuffed the body into a 3' high barrel. After
shooting the woman and shoving her body into the container, he left his
house, but "The woman would not let him forget her. Soon she would call to
him with an acrid aroma he couldn't ignore."
Irene has a thing about eyes. While a detective is preparing to open the
barrel, "All eyes were on the barrel, and all of those eyes were large."
Later, in court, "The family kept their eyes on the witness, but most of those eyes were moist." Another hostile witness had ". . . short hair, but today his temper was shorter."
This book was so bad, the only thing that kept me reading was the fun I was
having highlighting horrid writing.
[Contributor: Carina MacDonald, Denver, Colorado]
[#67]
Quite why P. D. James - the English crime writer - has attained such a reputation, I shall never know. Every page of every novel presents examples of ill-considered, pompous and tortuous prose. Let us open A Taste for Death at random:
Whatever the time of year, except in the worst of winter weather, this was her nightly routine. She would pour
herself a whisky, Bell's, and take out the glass for these minutes of contemplation, rather, she thought, like a caged
prisoner reassuring herself that the city was still there. But her small flat was no prison . . .
Let us consider this for a few moments.
Why should she fail to pour herself a whisky 'in the worst of the winter weather'? Would not adverse climatic conditions be
exactly those under which any sensible person would adhere most eagerly to this routine?
Why should she 'pour herself a whisky' and then 'take out the glass'? Where has she poured the whisky? Down the kitchen
sink? Over her shoes? Most of us, I daresay, would take out the glass before pouring the whisky.
How many caged prisoners - as opposed, I guess, to uncaged and wholly at liberty prisoners - pour themselves a short at bedtime? Given that the 'she' here is a police officer, the reader ought to expect a slightly greater degree of awareness in
respect of the conditions of incarceration.
Why should a 'caged prisoner' wish to reassure herself/himself 'that the city was still there'? Where else would it be? Gone to Miami for a fortnight's break? Would 'a caged prisoner' be distressed or elated at the sudden and unexplained absence of a
city? I only ask.
Then, lo, we discover that her 'small flat' is not in the least like a prison; so the point of the elaborate simile is lost. She is having a pleasant drink in a dwelling that does not resemble a cell. One might as well write, 'It was as though he had returned home and glanced in the mirror and discovered that his face had turned green, except that he had not glanced in the mirror - and his face had remained its normal colour.' Or, perhaps, he was a 'caged prisoner' who had not returned home at all . . .
[Contributor: Steve Prasher, Stockport, Cheshire, U.K.]
If only this were the initial sentence to the novel, I would suggest changing the name of the Bulwer-Lytton contest to the Herman Melville fiction contest; it is unquestionably the most impressive potential entry for the contest that I've ever seen, absolutely unbeatable
if you ever run a "celebrity Bulwer-Lytton contest" involving published writing. It's from that "classic" of American literature, Moby Dick; from the chapter "The Whiteness Of The Whale" (chapter 42); in this chapter, Melville spends 7+ pages explaining why, although in many situations, white is considered a GOOD color, in this instance, it seems more reminiscent of the spectral and is therefore scary. The following sentence/paragraph takes up ONE of those 7+ pages:
Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal pre-eminence in this hue; even the
barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title 'Lord Of The White Elephants' above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue;
and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolisings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things -- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honour; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and
in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these
accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.[469 words]
[Contributor: Jim Yanni, University City, Missouri]
THE WORD OF THE WEEK:It appears in the phrase "Markets have 'nichified.'" used by Mr. and Mrs. A.Toffler, co-authors of Future Shock writing in the Wall Street Journal. Did you realize that something could be nichified? The logical conclusion is that if someone is doing the
classifying he (or she) is the Nichifier. If the classifier is really good, she (or he) may go down in history as The Great Nichifier. If you're the target, beware -- you've been nichified. As a verb: I nichify, you nichify, he (or she) nichifies, etc.
I must stop now before I get pigeonholed in the wrong compartment, or compartmentalized in the wrong pigeonhole. Whatever -- I've found my own little niche in the deep (very deep) recesses of the publishing world - a contribution to "Sticks & Stones" on the unique use of language by writers who were paid a hell-of-a-lot more
for their article than the contributors were paid for their articles. As a matter of fact, if the Tofflers got paid anything, it's a hell-of-a-lot more than I've been paid.
[Contributor: Samuel W. Halper, Los Angeles, CA]
The Star Trek novel, Killing Time, by Della Van Hise (Original Series #24), is in general a turkey of a book, with a truly bad basic concept (the Romulans tamper with the time stream in an attempt to eradicate the Federation retroactively, and they succeed, sort of, in creating an alternate time line, but about half of the Enterprise crew in the alternate
time-line (including Kirk and Spock) REMEMBER the original time line in their dreams, and this, presumably, enables them to fix things.) Further, the characterizations of the Romulan villains of the piece are paper-thin, cardboard characters with no plausibility. But none of this is the reason that I'm "honoring" the book here. No, I'm "honoring" it for
this passage: (pg. 66)
"He rolled onto his back, and an illegible cry tightened the muscles in his thick neck."
I hope I don't NEED to point out that ALL cries are "illegible"; what she clearly meant is "unintelligible." And authors who don't know the difference between those two words shouldn't be writing. Of course, editors who don't know the difference between those
two words should likewise get out of the business, but that's another question.
[Contributor: Jim Yanni, University City, Missouri]
[#71]
Dragonfly, Frederic S. Durbin. Arkham House Publishers, Inc., 1999.
I have not read such long, involved and confusing sentences since I tried to
read The Last Days of Pompeii one boring summer when I was fourteen (It
was my great-Aunt's book and had an interesting frontpiece).
Here is an example of the first two sentence of the book:
"Bad thing were starting to happen again in Uncle Henry's basement. These
were things that had happened before, when the wind swung round, when the
trees all felt the blood rush to their leaves after the exertion of August
and the idling of September; when the chuckle-dark harvest moon shaped
pumpkins in its own image, brought its secret wine flush to the scarcrows'
cheeks; when the rich bounties of the land lay plump for the taking and the
light left them alone for longer and longer at a time."
The entire book is written in this manner.
[Contributor: Cindy Rosser, Odessa, Texas]
[#72]
In the, "metaphors run amok" category (so bad it's good):
"You got further plucking the chicken in front of you than trying to start on one up a tree. Especially when the tree was in another country, and there might not even be another chicken."
Robert Jordan, The Path of Daggers, p. 421
[Contributor: Amy S. Bruckman, Atlanta, GA]
[#73]
Browsing on the web, I came across a novel by Bertha Muzzy Bower called
Jean of the Lazy A. The first sentence is real Bulwer-Lytton contest
material. This is a genuine published novel:
How Trouble Came to the Lazy A, Chapter One:
Without going into a deep, psychological discussion of the elements in men's souls that breed events, we may say with truth that the Lazy A
ranch was as other ranches in the smooth tenor of its life until one day in June, when the finger of fate wrote bold and black across the face of it the word that blotted out prosperity, content, warm family ties,--all those things that go to make life worth while. (How Trouble Came to the Lazy A, Chapter One)
[Contributor: Tobias Robison, Princeton, NJ]
[#74]
In Tides, Melanie Tem writes from the point of view of a man with Alzheimer's and makes sure her readers are as muddled as he is. Two examples:
Not infrequently he did not recognize his daughter when she entered his field of vision. (p.5)
Every once in a while he got away, and the sense of freedom when he wasn't under their gaze could be exhilarating, until he considered what it meant about his life that he felt free when what he really was was lost; what it said about him that just being out on the sidewalk or among trees by himself made him feel freed; pretty pitiful, when you thought about it. (5-6)
At that point, I closed the book and felt freed myself.
[Contributor: Phillis Fox]
[#75]
In the March 8, 2001 Press-Democrat (Sonoma County, California), sports writer Jeff Fletcher asks of San Francisco Giants second baseman Jeff Kent (pp. c1 & c7) "How does a kid from Huntington beach wind up castrating cows in South Texas?"
I would like to know how a kid from anywhere can castrate cows, and not just in South Texas. Cows are generally differently anatomically endowed. If he was milking them I would understand. But this is Texas we're discussing and . . . well, I wonder what they do with their bulls?
[Contributor: Bill Crowley, Santa Rosa, CA]
[#76]
From A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King (1995):
"The solitary waitress, a thin woman with bad teeth, six hands, and the ability to keep eight quick conversations on her tongue simultaneously, wove her way through the nonexistence gaps, slapped a cup of tea onto the table in front of me, and took my order for eggs and chips and beans on toast without seeming to listen. The laden plate arrived before my sweet orange-coloured tea had cooled, and I set to putting it inside me."
I did enjoy this book. I was willing to forgive the six hands, the "nonexistence gaps"(whatever such might be), and the eggs, chips, and beans all apparently piled on toast (all three mixed together, or would one expect three separate pieces of toast?). However, the image of Mary Russell, aspiring young detective, attempting to stuff a dinner plate into her mouth (or other orifice) -- that was too much. Ms. King knows how to write. She should learn how to edit.
[Contributor: Randy Geithman]
[#77]
I love Laurell K. Hamilton's novels for a variety of reasons, but her prose
style is not one of them. Here's an example from Narcissus in Chains that
illustrates why:
"I stalked him the way he'd stalked me, and part of me noticed that I was placing my feet one atop the other, almost stepping in my own footsteps, like a cat."
I had to stop reading at this point, as I had a mental image of the intrepid
heroine tripping over her own feet to dispel. As I finally read on, so, too,
had the author written on. And on and on.
"The walk was oddly graceful, swaying my hips. My spine was very straight,
shoulders back, arms almost motionless at my sides, but there was a tension
running through my upper body, an anticipation of action, of violence."
There was a tension running through my body, too, as I wondered when the Ms.
Hamilton would get past the overwrought description, already, and get back to
the action.
[Contributor: E. Powell, Tampa, FL]
I have to submit this as the worst metaphor ever for the act of making love.
Written by Robert K. Tanenbaum, in one of the Butch Karp novels (i.e., Enemy Within, Act of Revenge):
"And then he was fully socketed to her, like a pipe wrench in a crock of warm chili."
I swear to God I'm not making this up. Robert must be a lonely man.
[Contributor: Jim Hintzen, Phoenix, AZ]
Russell Crowe stars in the over-produced Hollywood make of Patrick O'Brian's
sea novel of the Napoleonic wars, Master and Commander (1970), whose opening sentence reads suspiciously like a Bulwer-Lytton Contest entry:
"Past the word for Captain Aubrey, pass the word for Captain Aubrey," cried a sequence of voices, at first dim and muffled far aft on the flagship's maindeck, then growing louder and more distinct as the call wafted up to the quarterdeck and so along the gangway to the forecastle, where Captain Aubrey stood by the starboard thirty-two-pounder carronade, contemplating the Emperor of Morocco's purple galley as it lay off Jumper's Bastion with the vast grey and tawny Rock of Gibraltar soaring behind it, while Mr. Blake, once a puny member of his midshipman's berth but now a tall, stout lieutenant almost as massive as his former captain, explained the new carriage he had invented, a carriage that should enable carronades to fire twice as fast, with no fear of oversetting, twice as far, and with perfect accuracy, thus virtually putting an end to war.
[Contributor: T. Smollett, Cooper's Droop, TN]
I've always been a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft's work -- for many reasons,
including his ability to conjure up a really creepy atmosphere. Let's be
honest though: prose was not one of Lovecraft's strengths. The stories --
and the vision behind them -- more than make up for his constant use of
arcane adjectives. My favourites have always been "gibbous," "fungoid," and
"non-euclidian"). There are limits, however . . .
Lovecraft's first Randolph Carter story, 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown
Kadath," has quite a hard-core fan following. Unlike most of his stuff,
it's closer to whimsical fantasy than to horror, and so it's a bit more
purple than the bulk of his work:
"So to the organ chords of morning's myriad whistles, and dawn's blaze
thrown dazzling through purple panes by the great gold dome of the State
House on the hill, Randolph Carter leaped shoutingly awake within his
Boston room."
I can forgive that, just about. I'd guess that the majority of the letters
in the story are part of sentences longer than 50 words. He insists on
going on about ruddy Nyarlathotep, however. I lost count of how many times
he ends a sentence with a little note about the blind, hideous outer gods
and the fact that their soul and messenger is the crawling chaos
Nyarlathotep, yadda yadda. In fact, he seems to find it nearly impossible
to mention Nyarlathotep at all without reminding the reader that he's the
messenger of the outer gods. I can only assume he was being paid by the word.
I can even cope with that, if I grit my teeth and skim. There is no excuse
for describing anything with a frothing 100+ word sentence, however. He
does it twice* and hey, guess how both of the sentences end . . .
The longer of the two, at 113 words is:
"There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as that
shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered
universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost
confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity - the
boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and
who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst
the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine
of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly,
awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic Ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless,
tenebrous, mindless Other gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling
chaos Nyarlathotep."
(the other one ends: "awful voids outside the ordered universe where the
daemon sultan Azathoth gnaws hungrily in chaos amid pounding and piping and
the hellish dancing of the Other Gods, blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and
mindless, with their soul and messenger Nyarlathotep.")
Ah, the good old days...
[Contributor: Ted Dedopulos, Prague, Czech.]
Without further ado, I present three short sentences of lead-in (the first
is sort of a doozy anyway) followed by *the sentence*:
"On Monday, the officers sent for Henry, having arrested him, arrived with
him. The Mayor and Attorney Gen'l took charge of him, and set their wits to
work to elicit a discovery from him. He denied, and denied, and persisted in
denying.
"They still plied him in every conceivable way, till Wednesday, when,
protesting his own innocence, he stated that his brothers, William and
Archibald, had murdered Fisher; that they had killed him, without his
(Henry's) knowledge at the time, and made a temporary concealment of his
body; that, immediately preceding his and William's departure from
Springfield for home, on Tuesday, the day after Fisher's disappearance,
William and Archibald communicated the fact to him, and engaged his
assistance in making a permanent concealment of the body; that, at the time
he and William left professedly for home, they did not take the road
directly, but, meandering their way through the streets, entered the woods
at the North West of the city, two or three hundred yards to the right of
where the road they should have travelled, entered them; that, penetrating
the woods some few hundred yards, they halted and Archibald came a somewhat
different route, on foot, and joined them; that William and Archibald then
stationed him (Henry) on an old and disused road that ran near by, as a
sentinel, to give warning of the approach of any intruder; that William and
Archibald then removed the buggy to the edge of a dense brush thicket, about
forty yards distant from his (Henry's) position, where, leaving the buggy,
they entered the thicket, and in a few minutes returned with the body, and
placed it in the buggy; that from his station he could and did distinctly
see that the object placed in the buggy was a dead man, of the general
appearance and size of Fisher; that William and Archibald then moved off
with the buggy in the direction of Hickox's mill pond, and after an absence
of half an hour, returned, saying they had put him in a safe place; that
Archibald then left for town, and he and William found their way to the
road, and made for their homes."
[Contributor: Roger Wolfson, Redmond, WA]
[#82]
These sentences are from The Fiery Cross by Diana
Gabaldon. Her first three novels were excellent, but
in the past few years she seems to have adopted a new
credo: Never say in ten words what you can say in
forty or fifty.
To find these examples, I simply opened the book to a
random page and copied. I'm sure there are longer
ones, but I'm not going to read all 979 pages again to
find out.
"I was happy to see it, but conscious of a small
feeling of envy; I was all at once aware that I had
eaten nothing all day, that I was very cold,
desperately tired, sore in a number of places--and
that without the complications of Mrs. Beardsley and
her companions, I would long since have been safely in
Brownsville, fed warm, and tucked up by some friendly
fireside." [Word count: 69]
"Encouraged by the dark, the faint sense of intimacy
engendered by the exchange of names--or simply from a
need to talk, after so long--she told me about her
mother, who had died when she was twelve, her father,
a crabber, and her life in Baltimore, wading out along
the shore at low tide to rake oysters and gather
mussels, watching the fishing craft and the warships
come in past Fort Howard to sail up the Patapsco."
[Word count: 78]
The character described never shows up in the book
again after her inital thirty-page introduction.
"The middle shelf was given over to more light-minded
reading; a small selection of romances, slightly
ragged with much reading, featuring Robinson Crusoe;
Tom Jones, in a set of seven small, leather-covered
volumes; Roderick Random, in four volumes; and **Sir
Henry Richardson's [sic]
monstrous Pamela, done in two
gigantic octavo bindings--the first of these decorated
with multiple bookmarks, ranging from a ragged dried
maple leaf to a folded penwiper, these indicating the
points which various readers had reached before giving
up, either temporarily or permanently." [Word count:
87]
Note how she kindly defines "bookmark" for us in the
last passage. Just in case we didn't know.
--
The following passage is from page 255 of The Prodigy
by Noel Hynd. The novel is about a piano player who
gets possessed by the evil spirit of another pianist.
Hynd has a fondness for repeating things, but this is
the funniest example I found flipping through. And
yes, there really are that many ellipses!
[begin]
And he realized . . . the music was not his.
The interpretation was not his.
No, no, no, he told himself. This cannot be! A dead
man cannot be in my body. Rabinowitz cannot be
playing. I am Rolf Geiger and I am alive and Isador
Rabinowitz is dead and this cannot be happening!
But it was!
He heard the unmistakeable touch of Rabinowitz upon
the keys. In every note, in every bar and syllable.
Even the touch of Geiger's foot on the pedal relfected
the execution and the interpretation of the dead man.
. . . the legato, the cantabile . . .
It wasn't Geiger's. It was Rabinowitz's.
Who in God's name was playing?
How in the Devil's name could this be?
What the Living Hell was going on?
To make matters worse, a great deal of the preceding
is in italics as well, most notably the capitalized
"Living Hell."
[Contributor: Lisa Krause, Huntington MA]
[#83]
Perhaps some of you have heard of Robert Jordan, and of his The Wheel of Time collection. Praised by many critics as the best of its genre since J.R.R. Tolkien, I am thoroughly engrossed in the 10 book saga. However, due to a series of horrible word plays, I put the book down many times with a sick feeling in my stomach . . . I present the earliest such examples, from The Eye of the World.
"He gave a bark of laughter. ' I hear she chased old Luhhan and the dogs, all three out of the house with a broom.' "
What an appropriate place for a "bark" of laughter, right before a dog anecdote. Without skipping any text from the book, it resumes:
"Rand winced and laughed at the same time. ' If I were you, I'd worry more about Alsbet Luhhan than about the blacksmith. She's almost as strong and her temper is a lot worse.' "
Wincing and laughing at the same time huh? I'd like to see that. Alsbet is the blacksmith's wife, described as "almost as strong and her temper is a lot worse." Just in case you don't find the humor, remember what a blacksmith does... he tempers steel. My stomach was in a knot.
[Contributor: Aspen, Summerland, MA]
[#84]
An article called "Sights from the Long Tree" appeared in the Nauvoo
Times and Seasons, of November 15, 1841 written by my Great Great Uncle
Lyman Littlefield (I include only the first sentence).
"'Twas
morning--the sun rose under the brightest auspices, and the thin,
vaporous clouds that flitted in the heavens, continued gradually to flee
away before the gentle morning breeze, that seemed wont to greet their
golden visages with the soft rustle of its dewy wings--until not a
hand's breadth of them were seen remaining to mar the spotless beauty of
the ethereal blue. "
My great great uncle Lyman named his first son Edward Lytton Littlefield, "out of respect to Edward Lytton Bulwer who in recent years has been familiarly known as Lord Lytton, and who in the early years of my life, ranked in my estimation, among the most chaste and beautiful writers in fictitious literature."
Lyman Omer Littlefield (1819-1893) wrote his Autobiography and published
it as Reminiscences of Latter-day Saints (Logan, Utah: The Utah Journal
Co., 1888).
His complete autobiography can be found at
http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/LLittlefield.html. There are other
excerpts I could submit where Lyman emulated the writing style of Edward
Lytton.
[Contributor: George W. Littlefield, Long Beach, CA]
[#85]
This submission doesn't fall under the usual category of poorly-written "novels" -- this is actually the text of a sheet of instructions for a small remote-control car, bought at Radio Shack. Obviously the Japanese company that fabricated it has yet to grasp the subtle art of translation.
I'll dig it up every once and a while, just to laugh at the sheer horridness of it all -- enjoy. Best read out loud, if you're up to it.
I think that "mightiness of sunlight bottom" takes the cake here.
[Contributor: C. Dearden, Toronto, Ontario]
[#86]
A teaser in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 20th, 2004, read: "The Olympic track and field competition begins today, with the anticipation of further drug bombshells hanging in the air."
I don't know what a drug bombshell looks like, and I'm not entirely sure why it would be subverting the laws of gravity anyway. Don't bombshells usually fall?
[Contributor: Josh Rosenberg, Philadelphia, PA]
[#87]
"For a temporary shorthand-typist to be present at the discovery of a corpse on the first day of a new assignment, if not unique, is sufficiently rare to prevent its being regarded as an occupational hazard."
-- The opening sentence of P.D. James, Original Sin (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995).
[Contributor: Edward L. Saslow, Berkeley CA]
[#88]
A very prolific source of consistently bad writing is the News Photos section of Yahoo News. The captions can make your head spin. The one that comes most readily to mind relates to the Georgia crematorium scandal. This caption accompanied a photo of two men who had apparently been helping to retrieve the bodies, and who were walking away from the site. The caption started:
"Two men carrying shovels that didn't want to be identified . . ."
The writer respected the shovels' wishes and didn't name them. And these people get paid to write this stuff?
[Contributor: Jean Herndon, Kaysville, UT]
I'm not sure if Web pages count, but here's a description of some
software from http://www.jumsoft.com/process/ :
Process 1.0, Jumsoft's fresh face in the tired throng of outlining applications, is destined to draw a crowd all of its own. Its sublime, user-friendly Aqua interface makes outlining with Mac OS X a treat. But that's only the start of this all-round wonderful experience. The end result is more remarkable still: Process 1.0 doesn't just make it simpler to organize your ideas and projects; it has a favorable effect on the outcome of all your planning that is nothing short of subliminal.
"Nothing short of subliminal," eh? In other words, you don't notice any
effect.
[Contributor: Alan Palmer, London, UK]
[#90]
From River Road by JoAnn Ross:
When he heard the shower turn on, Finn imagined her naked, imagined himself joining her in that compact shower, smoothing the fragrant soap that clung to her skin and made him think of dark-eyed gypsies dancing around burning campfires over her lush curves.
How shall I count the ways . . . long, long, long. Why does the soap make him
think of gypsies? Small gypsies, too, if they can dance over her curves, and
I really hate it when they light fires there, too. Ouch.
[Contributor: Janet Mullany. Cheverly, MD]
I recently bought some putty, manufactured in China. It came with the instructions, 'before using putty, peel off skin and roll into a small ball between your finger and thumb.'
Pretty serious stuff! It's a bit like the notice on the gents toilet in Hong Kong that said, 'do not enter a lady here.'
On another occasion I bought some adhesive car door protectors. The accompanying instructions were quite enlightening.
To avoid the bonkings in the parkings.
I think Alice or the White Rabbit would see some sense in this.
[Contributor: Barnaby Drake, Tasmania]
From The Bride Finder, Susan Carrroll:
"An anguished cry escaped him. It didn't disturb Madeline, for he trapped it deep within his soul."
Somebody ought to send this woman a dictionary so she can look up the meanings of "cry," "escaped," and "trapped."
[Contributor: Rose Wild, Perth, Australia]
- -From Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins
"It is not a belly button. (The umbilicus serves, then withdraws, leaving
but a single footprint where it stood: the navel, wrinkled and cupped,
whorled and domed, blind and winking, bald and tufted, sweaty and
powdered, kissed and bitten, waxed and
fuzzy, bejeweled and ignored; reflecting as graphically as breasts, seeds
or fetishes the omnipotent fertility in which Nature dangles her muddy
feet, the navel looks in like a plugged keyhole on the center of our
being, it is true, but O navel, though
we salute your motionless maternity and the treams that have got tangled
in your lint, you are only a scar, after all; you are not it.)"
Amazingly, this is not the most painful paragraph Tom Robbins has produced. It is followed by the detailed discussion of the rectal temperature of an oyster and later by a self-indulgent celebration of the hundredth page of the novel. Excruciating stuff.
[Contributor: Erin Buttermore, Tasmania]
Copies of the Prince's 1986 self-published messterpiece, Cardboard Cantata, signed, are to be found in numbers on the shelves of charity stores throughout Sydney, crammed beside the fat, tinsel-wrappered tomes of Danielle Steel, Sydney Sheldon, and other 'read-it-once-and-toss-it-away' word-wights. But 'Cardboard Cantata' is a sleeper, a treasure, a keeper. I collect literary dreck, particularly the self-published, because it is instructive (bad writing teaches what not to do, using examples one would just never have thought up oneself), but it must be the genuine article. It must be clear that the author cannot write any better. Steel, Sheldon, Collins and their ilk are obvious pros at confecting best-selling schlock. The Prince, however, is a rocking chair natural. A gem: cut and polished marcasite of purest ray serene.
I cite just the opening paragraph (which I nominate for win, place, or show in the Opening Paragraph Most Overburdened with Exposition World Championships), but one can open this wondrous book at random and cull exquisitely cack-handed pars from every page.
'The shriek detonated throughout the big house. It seemed to gather momentum rather than follow the laws of harmonics. The young gardener looked up from the hedge he was clipping, mumbled something in an aside, then calmly returned to his task, a cheeky expletive on his lips. Farah, the maid in the kitchen looked up, raised her eyebrows and continued to scrape the grapefruit into the Minton dish. Nellie ran upstairs as soon as she heard the sound, she was the only one to act positively in the household, she knew her mistress was awake.'
After just a few sentences, our author emerges draped in satin sashes for Most Muddled Metaphor, Nouveau Name-Dropping, Toshiest Tautology, Outrageous Overwriting, Damnably Dangling Participles, Foozled Physics, and Simple Illogicality (Second Class, with Raised Eyebrows). And we've barely started our tale.
I can't forbear to include the second par, it is so loaded with beauty. Please do not adjust the punctuation, it is here just as it was printed:
'She ran panting, she found her, Babylonia Grushman-her mistress in bed, the papers opened around her, Women's Wear Daily opened in front of her, a beatific smile on her lips and eyes. Nellie could not figure out whether she looked evil or transfigured, it was as if she was a Buddha in absolute Nirvana. Nellie had seldom seen her like this before and felt like an interloper in a strange religious ceremony.'
I dare not cite the third par, it may well kill you with aesthetic surfeit. I shall have to go and lie down myself in a darkened room with a cold cloth upon my brow, but come on, fess up. Is not our precious Prince just The Goods when it comes to Ditziest Glitz Writer of the Antipodes? And Viking has published his autobiography . . .
[Contributor: Stephen Gard]
The opening paragragh of Seetee Shock by Jack Williamson.
"The void leered. Implacable hostility flattened itself against the frosty dark, awaiting the time to strike. Shocking danger fled away from him into the sucking emptiness, and cunningly eluded him, and ruthlessly returned. Timeless peril watched forever, with the cruel, cold eyes of the stars.
Nicol Jenkins, spatial engineer, fought back silently."
That's as far as I've got, one day I hope to read the next paragragh.
[Contributor: George Stott, Edinburgh, Scotland]
From Barbara Boxer's new novel, A Time to Run. And yes, it is about two horses having sex.
"A ton of finely tuned muscle, hide glistening, the crest of his mane risen in full sexual display, and his neck curved in an exaggerated arch that reminded Greg of a horse he'd seen in an old tapestry in some castle in Europe Jane had dragged him to."
Simply awful. I mean, mind-bogglingly awful. Scratch out your eyes awful. And yet she continues.
"The stallion approached, nostrils flared, hooves lifting with delicate precision, the wranglers hanging on grimly. ... The stallion rubbed his nose against the mare's neck and nuzzled her withers. She promptly bit him on the shoulder and, when he attempted to mount, instantly became a plunging devil of teeth and hooves. ... Greg clutched the rails with white knuckles, wondering, as these two fierce animals were coerced into the majestic coupling by at least six people, how foals ever got born in the wild."
[Contributor: David Lemmon, Columbus, Ohio]
I work for a trade publishing company, and one of our products is a line of manuals for electricians. This sentence is from the pre-edited text of a book on emergency power systems, as sent to us by the writer:
"Simply reading these words about an emergency power system that we have not seen or worked with does not sufficiently describe the importance of this type of system; but putting oneself in the position of being in the emergency room of a hospital having a severed artery sewn closed when a tornado destroys the electrical utility overhead pole-type distribution system and the room turns to blackness begins to add clarity."
Indeed. In fact it was such a good example I've kept it for four years.
[Contributor: Holly Messinger, Kansas City, MO]
OK, I'm reading a book called The Lady Killer by
Samantha Saxon, published in 2005.
These examples I found on three consecutive pages.
"The boy swallowed, his chubby cheeks bouncing on
his face." Hey, it'd been to bad if they bounced
right off, hey?
Then "the lad ran in stuttered steps." Wha? The
dictionary says that word refers to a voice speaking
or the rattle of guns, neither of which are relevant
to how the boy walks.
And finally, "Falcon starred at the wooden top still
lying motionless on the floor and purposely
looked away . . ." Well duh.
Just bad writing, not the worst, but irritating.
[Contributor: Michele Kiger, Laguna Beach]
I thought I'd call your attention to Jim Caple's serial novel 24 College Avenue. It starts out describing the lives of a few college students who live off-campus together, but then realizes it has no idea where it's going, treads water for about 30 chapters, and finally decides on this bizarre plot where the President of the United States is a member of this Skull-and-Bones-type secret society made up of "fops" who talk in the most stereotypically elitist English imaginable. Here's a link to the most recent chapter, which I thought was a particularly good example of how woeful a writer Caple is.
Some highlights:
"How could you betray me like this? I trusted you! I made love to you! And it turns out you're one of ... them." She not only spat out the final word, she spat in his face.
Emmenthaler nonchalantly drew out a monogrammed handkerchief and wiped away the spit. "If it makes you feel any better, the sex was great," he said."
"You make it sound so simple," the president replied. "Do you know how much Escalades cost, not to mention bling bling?"
"We don't need to get personal, Hudson," the president said, pacing in front of the housemates. "Our plot was foolproof, absolutely foolproof until you meddling kids got involved."
"Save your breath. You may have the power to unleash a nuclear winter, but you don't intimidate me. You don't know what intimidation is until you've had to deal with a shoe factory foreman in Saigon. Now, those guys are tough."
[#5]
The Commentary: You'll have to pardon me for such a lengthy submittal,
but rest assured that I omitted the first part of the paragraph which,
in its entirety, might in itself contain enough exemplary material for
an entire course in how not to write. The sentence fragments. Since when
did "nuts" become an adjective? We're all just lucky that the author
didn't enter this material in the BLFC, or we would all be one step
lower in the rankings. At least.
[#6]
And this," Pauline continued, indicating the largest of the three
men, "is Mr. Earl. He's your security guard, and he'll shadow you
until the jewels are returned all in one piece."
Laura smiled charmingly at the beefy young guard, whose
massive shoulders and biceps threatened to split the seams of his
rented dinner jacket.
"'Ello, Miss," he said, politely touching his forehead with a finger in
a kind of salute. "It's a right 'onor. 'Course, my old mum an' I, we
seen all yer pictures. She's a great fan 'o yers, is me mum"
This is my favorite excerpt from the unpublished oeuvre of
actress/author(?) Joan Collins. The work was never published
because Random House, with whom she had a contract to write
two books, alleged that the manuscript she delivered, Hell Hath
No Fury, was unusable and sued her for the return of their
advance.
[#7]
With little fanfare, in 1988 or 1989, possibly the worst written book ever published came out. Zebra press, known for its "Men's Adventure" novels, released Bodysmasher by Jan Stacy. The premise gave notice of how bad it was to be; something to the effect of "Not only is Rick Harrison the world's best professional wrestler, he's also the CIA's most top secret operative."
[#8]
"He was as guarded as a virgin, but infinitely more experienced."
[#9]
The following excerpt is from "The CNE Study Guide" written by David James Clarke, who attempts an analogy to help better the understanding of the term "Flow Control" in networking.
To start with, how can one wave their arms if they're full. That's what prompted this stupid analogy in the first place. Next, if they started nodding their head, the soda would be spilling all over the place. Not a pretty picture. But, let's face it, this whole scenario could be elevated if this person just had enough sense to put the boxes down and get the drink on their own. Some people are just lazy.
[#10]
As you may know, the New York Times began this very week to publish color photographs in the Living Arts Section. One must occassionally accept such clumsy lurches into the modern era. However, lurking behind the visual gloss was an even more menacing species of written dross. The following was
excerpted from the Op. Ed. page of today's NYT. Both great art and great crap routinely defy description, so I present them unadorned without the handicap of my own ornate, brocade, reticulated, spiffy commentary. These are just a few of my favorite passages. True Bulwerians will wish to relish the whole tamale.
[#11]
Whitney's mortal pen also gave those "who look upon books as upon their friends" A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life."
[#12]
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[#15]
First - Sexually ambiguous watch? I have yet to meet a watch whose gender I could not identify - they don't have one. Or perhaps Mr. Whalen means the watch is attracted to both men and women?
Second - A semi-reasonable meaning can eventually be grasped for the above, at least after wading through some of the more vivid images the odd phrase brings to mind, but what on earth does the verb "popped" mean in this context? What precisely is she doing with her second sock? Third - Why does NEARLY EVERY NOUN have an at least one adjective? Do we really need to be informed, all in the same sentence, that it was the "second" sock and a "sexually ambiguous" watch and there were "blond"
hairs on her "handsome" forearms? This trend is continued throughout the book - in the next paragraph, she straightens a comforter her grandmother made, and as she stares at the "antique" headboard and
"fading" bedspread she can see the "gentle, arthritic" hands of the "old" woman etc., etc., etc.
Part of bad writing is an uncanny knack for choosing the wrong word - the word that doesn't quite mean what the author wants, or makes the sentence cliche, or is odd without being interesting, or boringly
repetitive, or just plain wildly inappropriate. This author, in a very short space, has managed all of those - an impressive achievement.
In addition, the sex scenes in the novel are among the most boring I
have ever read in my life.
[#16]
[#17]
-- Dean Koontz, Intensity
[#18]
By the end of the alley the fine hairs in my nostrils were starting to
twitch.
Lindsey Davis, Shadows in Bronze
[#19]
I am still trying to interpret this!
-- E X Ferrars, A Murder Too Many
[#20]
"The son called his mother two days ago,
hundreds of miles and two countries separating a voice of
anticipation."
The son was Jesse Palmer a University of Florida quarterback; his mother lives in Canada. Would those two countries be Michigan and Wisconsin?
[#21]
[#22]
This is the agony we must endure in San Antonio. The damned Hearst press has a lot to answer for.
[#23]
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[#25]
"'What a godforsaken spot to get lost,' she drawled, her cheerfulness not having been kept even at simmering point by frequent applications of
alcohol."
[#26]
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[#29]
from Riddle of the Traveling Skull in 1934 by Harry Stephen Keeler.
[#30]
The hero and heroine are trying to escape a hit man as they climb up the side
of a mountain, and this sentence occurs (page 247):
[#31]
Some surprise now--especially as it went on to give details of his 2
engagements!
[#32]
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[#35]
--Gloria Goldreich, That Year of Our War (1994) p. 46
Was ten dollars the price of the housedress? That's fairly expensive for the 1940s. Did someone pay the young woman ten
dollars to wear the dress? If so, why? I had quite a chuckle at Ms. Goldreich's expense and, for the next couple of weeks
after reading it, shared this quotation with anyone who would listen.
[#36]
-- The Mystery of Tally-Ho Cottage, By Enid Blyton
--Doctor Who - Castrovalva, by Christopher H. Bidmead
[#37]
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[#49]
American Practitioner and News, August 13th, 1892
[#50]
When I read this sentence I immediately thought of the "Sticks and Stones"
portion of your Bulwer-Lytton website:
-- Billy Cox, "Shepard Statue Honors American Space Cowboys," Florida Today,
March 24, 2000.
[#52]
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[#59]
"You could run around in Angel Hair socks for months without getting holes in
them."
"People doubted."
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[#79]
[145 words]
[#80][And now, to Lovecraftian Sites in New England, featured in Literary Locales]
[#81]
How glad I am to find a place to call truly atrocious sentences to the
public eye! I came across the following a few years ago and doubt I will
ever see a worse run-on. Please do me, and yourself, two favors as you read
this: 1) read it aloud the first time, even if you're alone, to see if you
can get to the end without cracking up laughing; and 2) don't scroll to the
end of the message (below the spoiler space) to read the (well-known!)
author's name before you read the sentence itself.
from "The Trailor Murder Mystery" by Abraham Lincoln
(yes, that Lincoln!!!)
[This text was scanned from Dastardly Little Detective Stories, ed. Weinberg et.al. (1993, Barnes and Noble Books).]
**[He must mean Samuel Richardson (and his "monstrous novel" [over a million words] was Clarissa, not Pamela).]
Usage Manual
1) Is not suitable for the 3 years old and the following child
2) Before beginning uses must hard finish reading this manual
3) Suggestion is under the person's leading usage
Safe Rule
1) prohibition against 3 years old below of child usage;
2) play attention, you of finger, hair, clothes ...etc. don't touch and car wheel, in order to prevent quilt harm;
3) car while driving do not want to by hand grasp it
4) don't let the remote control close to any fire with car original;(such as electric stove, stove beside, or mightiness of sunlight bottom)
5) not want the place in danger to play;(such as street, steep slope...etc.)
6) don't let the wet water of car, and not want under the rainy day is open-air usage;
7) not want on the sand ground to play;
8) forbid the child to tear open the remote control with the car
9) if the car dash to piecesed, and should pass by the person check or profession personnel maintain the rear can continue to use
[#89]
[#91]
Clean off fat and grease.
Stick the rubber side up before closing doors.
Shine your light from backside. If you donot see reflection you are on wrong side of mirror.
[#92]
[#93]
[#94]Let me commend your attention to the outstanding author Lorenzo Montesini who 'holds courtesy titles as Prince Giustiniani, Count of the Phanaar, Knight of Saint Sophia and Baron Alexandroff.' He currently (1999) resides in Sydney.
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