The art of writing badly...

I just realized it takes nearly as much skill to write badly as it does to write well--believe it or not. If that weren't the case, then winning a contest such as the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest would be a cake walk. So this has to be as legitimate a writing exercise as any other.

The rules are simple:
1) Write as badly as you can. Force yourself to write something so utterly painful, it would have Bulwer-Lytton himself running screaming from the village.
2) Keep the pieces short: under 300 words.
3) No walls of text--insert blank spaces between each and every paragraph. A wall of text that has one blank line inserted in the middle is now just two walls of text. Insert lines, please. No cheating.
4) Any genre, although common consideration would dictate you start your post with a warning if there's any offensive content--language, violence, or sex.


My first effort is advertising copy. I chose this genre because I spent three years writing and producing radio commercials. Just to knock some of the glamor and mystique out of that for you, being a broadcast copywriter is like...being deep in the bowels of hell, the devil has a butt full of splinters, and you're the only one with a set of tweezers.

But I flashback to the days when clients would insist on what are known as 'conversational' spots (commercials) where you have two or three people talking, and they're just absolutely raving about the product or service being advertised in such a way that the conversation doesn't sound at all natural. You try to point this out, and the client just carries on, unabated. Clients insisting you write a wretched ad for them. Oh yeah, I've done my time in hell. Okay, here's my piece:





“Hey, Sally, have you tried new Frito Lay Baked Pork Rinds?”


“Why, no, Betty, I haven’t tried new Frito Lay Baked Pork Rinds. Should I?”


“Yes, Sally! New Frito Lay Baked Pork Rinds are simply delicious, and have only half the fat of regular pork rinds.”


“Are you sure, Betty? How can new Frito Lay Baked Pork Rinds be low in fat? They’re pork rinds!”

“Well, Sally, with Frito Lay’s new, top-secret fat-lowering process that not even the federal government knows about, new Frito Lay Baked Pork Rinds have the same fat content as one tootsie roll or forty seven oranges! And they’re sinfully delicious!”

“Thanks, Betty! I’ll run out today and pick up some new Frito Lay Baked Pork Rinds for the whole family!”

 

Laying more prostrate than a fallen stick upon his place of slumber that was a hue similar to--but not exactly--blue, the young, but not extremely young--more like the point in age where a person is not young anymore, but still is not old, and slightly before the beginning of the long and slow decline into which all eventually succumb--man tapped away rather in a pointless fashion at a small, but not minuscule, device that was lit brighter than anything else that occupied the medium sized room with wood floors and light blue walls that were totally invisible due to the lack of light that dominated the medium sized room in which the youngish man lay on the bluish bed tapping pointlessly at they brightly lit device, all the while attempting to write a single sentence of such overwhelmingly horrible purple prose--although, when one brings it up, why is it called purple prose and why is the color purple associated with such intense verbosity?--that it would make the screens of all those who read it crack and send mercurial particles of carcinogens scattering through the air, without any real intention of causing harm however because that would be evil...

Whew... I am truly proud of how ashamed I am of that piece of writing.

 

Once upon a time there was a little old woman who lived in a cupcake house that was fluffy and moist and it never got dried out or moldy. Her name was Ms. Smith. She had wrinkles that sagged and dragged longer than a dog's tail when it's pouting, and she had blue hair that looked like shriveled up cotton candy that someone at the circus left under their seat for way too long because they were amazed by the clowns.

Ms. Smith's whole neighborhood was filled with cupcake houses because she was the landlord and owned all of them but she rented them out to rich people that could afford to live in such a devine delicacy. She had chocolate ones and vanilla ones and banana ones and coffee ones and pumpkin ones and strawberry ones and blueberry ones and double chocolate triple chuck ones--a bazillion flavors! Whatever flavor cupcake her customer picked was also the complimentary air freshener for their home, and it smelled so good. And don't forget about the icing rooftops with fondant decorations! The sweet neighborhood of Ms. Smith's was so pretty at Christmastime.

Ms. Smith had grandchildren too that lived in her cupcake with her too, and they all had their own rooms inside of it. And since Ms. Smith was so super rich she had a pool of chocolate filling that they could swim in and enjoy on those hot oven days because it would get so terribly warm in that cupcake. But most of the time it was just simply delightful for them to live in that cupcake because I myself think it would be so much fun to live in a cupcake in a neighborhood owned by a Ms. Smith that doesn't exist, don't you think so reader?

A children's story that spoiled.

 

When I moved the piece, it wasn't a castle,horse, woman, or man. It was infantry, my very soul embedded in the chiseled,smooth surface of a black piece, but then again, was it a black piece? Or a black beast? If it's the latter, on could say it is a metaphor for the human condition. That we all lay our places on squares until we're captured or rescued by our brethren. Such is melancholy.


Never again will I do purple prose lmao.

 

Ooooooooooh, these are all so incredibly, deliciously bad! Well-done!

 

"I don't know what to do, Barny," Tara said, her eyes shining like marbles as she tapped her foot and did something with her mouth that made it look slightly ajar, in a way that made her unsure of herself yet completely sure at the same time. "I really don't know." She enigmatically sighed heavily and placed her left palm against her left cheek, which had a lovely tone of this reddish hue that was slightly orangey yellow like a bowl of peaches.

Barny smiled widely and happily, the tips of his lips extending really, really far, showing the dark wrinkles of his face, which made him look very old indeed, but not too old. "Well I don't know either, Tara." He intelligently crossed his arms like a confident man who went to a very prestigeous college. He stood slightly angled, about 15 degrees to the left, allowing a portion of his body weight to be shifted onto his left leg, which was an inch forward from his right. It made him look pretentiously arrogant and slightly egotistical at the same time. "I just don't know."

 

"Don't go! I can't live without you!" cried Sarah, hysterically, as she held onto John's sleeve.

"I must go, Sarah." said John, dramatically, "I think I don't love you any more. I'm kind of in love with Natalie."

And John shook himself loose of Sarah's grip. Sarah sank to the floor in a heap of tearful whimpering.

"Goodbye, Sarah," said John, "It's not you, it's me."

John hopped on his horse and with a "giddy up!" he was gone, leaving Sarah in a cloud of dust.

"Nooooooooooooooo," exclaimed Sarah, as she lifted the .44 Magnum revolver to her temple and cocked the hammer.

BANG!

Sarah shot up in her bed, drenched in cold sweat.

"Thank goodness," muttered Sarah, "it was all just a dream".

Sarah and John continued to live happily ever after. The end.


Edit: This thread is awesome.

 

.
'Wh... wh... wh... what's that?' stuttered Fred ironically as he looked at Sally quizzically at what she was eating.

'Pizza,' she said laconically, her mouth open and chewing as if it was the entrance to the Mersey Tunnel on a bank holiday weekend. Sally didn't like going through the Mersey Tunnel because it was always crowded like a bank holiday weekend. That's what she always thought, anyway.

Fred wondered what she was thinking as she was eating all the pizza and he wanted a bit and Sally needed to lose weight anyway, he thought.

'C... c... c... can I have a bit as well?' He stammered again because he had stammered from childhood and hadn't yet been cured at all.

'Them's that ask, don't get,' admonished Sally haughtily as she eyed the last bit of pizza and wondered.

Little Jimmy said, 'I didn't ask for any pizza, did I Sally?' Little Jimmy was only little and he liked pizza as well.

'Nah, because you don't want none!' laughed Sally ingratiatingly as she ate the last bit of pizza and left poor Fred and Jimmy with none. She could be ironic as well.

 

(Maybe ever so slightly offensive)

Prologue:
The terrifying night frightens like the darkness you will see on your death bed, when the demons of the past come out to play, like hot coals etching at your mind. It is night such as these one must be wary.....

CH 1

Suki Onomoto crept stealthily through the pitch black darkness, her bright, crystal blue eyes piercing through the morbid night like two beacons straight out of heaven. Her high cheek bones and forehead glistened brilliantly and suddenly her bright, full, red lips curved into a wicked smile, her bow at the ready. She saw him, Magnis, her target. Her stealthy, lithe body snuck silently behind him, till the tip of her arrow poked gingerly at his muscular backside.

"Recognize this situation?" she jested, her voice being barely louder than a whisper, sort of like the sound a pigeon makes when it laughs, but much more delicate.
Magnis smirked, his grey steel eyes cold like an iron sword, his thick and wavy iron streaked hair blowing through the wind of the night. "You think you have me?" he hollered into the night, and suddenly he was not in front of her.

Suki frowned, her eyes bulging, as she could feel two rough hands behind her. Magnis! But how had he suddenly gotten behind her? Such is the speed of vampires....

"You will pay for your insolence!" Magnis laughed loudly into the growing night.

Sex scene ensues.

Suki lay breathless, her clothes torn and tattered, her nick glistening cardinal red. The third bite. She stared at Magnis in horror; her tormentor, captor, and now eternal lover and master for life. As a vampire's thrall, she would be forced to do his every bidding, every deviant act and sin she would never act out of her own volition, now she must do for an eternity, with no responsibility whatsoever, as it would all be Magnis's doing. Magnis, the evil vampire master who would never age,his devilish good looks encased in solid ice for an eternity, and now she too, Suki, young forever, though her soul would darken with every agonizing hour, much the darkness and shade of the terrifying nights one fears.




Best. Thread. Ever.

 

123456789, that's nowhere near awful enough for this thread. Try again!

 

I'm not sure whether to take that as compliment or criticism.

Then again, I merely amalgamated from all the gems you can find in the writing section.

 

The Man With The Gun and The Man Who Could Run Fast


There was a man with a gun. He walked up to a gas station. His car had ran out of gas. He was pushing his car up to the gas station. He walked into the gas station to order some gas for the pump.

Down the street, someone was running. The sun shinned behind him. His sweat glistened from the sunlight. Many drops of sweat escaped from his body, and we rolling down his neck, and even on his inner thighs. His butt was hugged just perfectly by the pants. He walked into the gas store.

The man who had the car was ordering gas. While the man who could run fast picked up a candy bar. After the man with the car ordered his gas he turned around and knocked the candy out of the other man's hand and stepped on it by accident.

"You kilt on my candy bar!" yelled the running man. "Sorry." said the man who had the car. "It's the principle!" yelled the running man. He then started running around the store in circles and then punched the man who had the car out of the gas station mini store door. He then reached into his car, pulled out a gun and slipped something into his other pocket.

The man who could run fast was shot at and kicked the gun out of the other man's hand and kicked him to the ground.

The man with the gun yelled, "Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!" The man who could run fast than punched the man with the gun to the ground. They both looked at another guy who was pumping gas, then the man with the gun pulled the trigger. The gas station then exploded.

It turned out the man with the gun.....was really the man with TWO GUNS!

 

The dead body lay on the hospital gurney, motionless, inert, lifeless, and completely still. Susan poked it with a stick. It did not respond. It was like a lump that didn’t move when poked.

Dr. Franken wheeled a machine into the room. It looked like a cow’s udder hanging from a vacuum cleaner. It was mostly blue, but the udder part was yellow, the color of fine golden daffodils in a late August sun in Pittsburgh or maybe Winnipeg. Dr. Franken, lean and sallow like a professional wrestler in surgeon’s scrubs and Hanes briefs (which you couldn’t see because of the surgeon’s scrubs), fondled its controls.

“What’s that?” Susan asked in a puzzled, questioning voice, offhandedly tossing her raven-black hair away from her beautiful, heart-shaped, Uruguayan-Asian un-made-up face, a slight sheen of skin oil decorating her long aquiline nose, the overhead fluorescent lights shining from her snout, its quivering feminine tip vibrant and proud, silhouetted against the plain hospital wall that defined the outline of the profile of her nasal prominence, in an interrogative gesture.

“It’s a proton-implosion demortifier,” Dr. Franken said explainingly. “My latest invention.” His eyes, large and intelligent like twin cue-balls with round irises and black little pupils sucked deep under the crag of his protean brow that could not hide his obvious unprecedented scientific and medical genius, stared at the dead body like a man deeply concentrating on a corpse, a mere husk of what had once been a human being, animated by love, joy, devotion, passion, but now a loose collection of limbs attached to a torso remarkable in its stone-like quietude and infinite unflappability; rigor mortis, that adamantine badge of utter finality, had set in. “It will suck the deadness out of him, leaving nothing but bare life!” He switched it on …

 

I tried to come up with something, but failed.
I felt dirty and started editing myself


I guess I'll have to settle for reading the other terrible excepts.

 

Deep in a magical forest; Fairies gleamed and sparkled with magic as was becoming of magical beings who lived in a magical forest. A small orphan girl, unaware of her royal half-fairy, half-elf heritage, had ran away from her abusive step-mother to the magical forest to sing mellifluously to birds, tame beasts that no one else could, and turn poisonous mushrooms into gourmet delicacies with nothing but a small fire (she was a good fire-maker) and a sauteed ferns. As she cooked, she sung. Her voice was bright and high, and it called the fairies who were amazed at the child who could do everything as well as adults, even better than the best singers, beast-tamers, and cooks.

I tried writing more, I couldn't bring myself to it. If I continued writing about how amazing the girl was or how Edward-Cullen like the fairies were, I think I would have thrown myself off a bridge.

 

Jillx was a kickass fighter pilot who was really angry today. She was angry because her assignment was being a pain in the ass. Her assignment was a bald headed guy with a red bandanna with a paisley pattern on it. Did I mention she was a bounty hunter? Her assignment, the bald guy, thought she was being such a b---- and was probably on her PMS.

"Hey sugar lips, how about you give me a kiss?" the bald guy said with a pucker. He thought she was kind of cute… for a kidnapper.

"Shut your pie hole, or I'll shut it for you!” she said in a quiet whisper, forcefully pushing her glittery pink laser gun into his fat face.

They were in this alien jungle with a lot of things that could kill them if they heard them, and so Jillx was angry at him for being loud like a 20th century frat boy. After a few days of getting in some close calls with some hunky alien stalkers, they finally made it to the mansion in the middle of the jungle.

“Took you long enough,” said Jillx’ client, Tohm. Tohm paid Jillx what she was owed.

That’s when Jillx snapped. Because it all made sense now that Tohm was going to make the bald guy hack into the Empire. But it would affect some good people accidentally, and Jill had a code of not harming good people. So, she decided that Tohm was bad so she killed him. She looted the place and then let the bald guy, Jak, free into the jungle, where he was obnoxious and died.

 

She ran to him, heart beating like the drums of war. "Oh my God! Marty, say something!" She took him by the shoulders and shook him passionately. Then, she slapped him across the face. Tears streamed down her face like a sorrowful river.

"What? Who's there? Cindy? OH CINDY!"

"I thought you died, Marty."

"Nothing can kill me. Not even death. Besides, who would take care of you if I died." He smirked. "Our love is too strong. Nothing can break that bond."

"Oh Marty I can't do this anymore! I can't sit on the sidelines and watch you nearly die all the time. Take me with you! Let me be there at your side to help!"

"No, Cindy." He stroked her cheek. "It's too dangerous." He kissed her.



Dear God, I can't keep writing this...

 

That's the best bad opening to a bad story I've ever read.

Mmkay, taking another shot at this:


Lawrence sweated bullets as he shoved the last of the severed heads into the dumpster behind Barney's Big Burgers. He glanced in. One of the heads glared back at him, as it sat perched atop a pile of moldy buns and limp french fries. "It ain't fer me, ya understand. It's fer muh dog." He turned to his dog, who answered to 'Skeeters' and hadn't quite finished gnawing on a spleen, and said "We gotta hit the open road, Skeeters."

Skeeters looked up, wantonly, and barked, "Arf, arf arf, bow wow, ruff."

"You got that right, Skeeters. I don't think they gonna find us, though."

"Baroooooooooooo, ruff ruff, arp!"

"Good point, Skeeters. Well, guess'un we'll just have to stay off the interstate then."

Lawrence heard a squeaky 'pop' and then was splattered with juice. "Skeeters, I loves you like you was my very own, but I cain't keep feedin' ya spleens. They just ain't easy to come by. Not since I got fired from the mortuary."

Lawrence scooped Skeeters up in his arms, and headed for his pea-green '79 El Camino with wood panels on the sides.

"Arf arf, barooo, barooo, arf!"

"Yeah, I guess'un we kin stop for donuts."

 

I will take another crack at it too!

There once was a man named Sam. Sam was a man. Sam had the features of a man. Basically, Sam looked like a man.

Sam went to town. Sam ate a sandwich. Sam went home.

When Sam got home there was a very bad man there. His name was Bad Sam. Bad Sam was Sam's evil twin. He was evil and bad.

They fought, and Sam beat Bad Sam, and Bad Sam ran away with his tail between his legs, because he had a tail that was red because he was evil and bad.

Sam was happy and lived happily ever after.

But that's not the end, because Bad Sam came back again!

But Sam beat Bad Sam up again, and sent him back where he belonged! But then Bad Sam came back again, because he was evil and bad and like to do evil and bad things and was mad at Sam because Sam was not evil and bad and did not like to do evil and bad things to people so he wanted to beat him up because he was evil and bad.

But Sam beat up Evil Sam, or wait, no... Evil Sam beat up Sam this time, because he had help from his evil and bad friends. But then Sam got up, and kicked them all out of his house and then ate a sandwich.

He made it himself, and it had lettuce and salami!

 

Pheonix, that was brilliant. I was on the edge of my seat. You are the master of suspense. I really appreciated the depth you gave your characters - they seemed so lifelike! I was really concerned about the fate of that lettuce and salami sandwich.

I was especially impressed by the way you handled dialogue. You basically didn't write any, and I guess that was innovative.

Congratulations!

 

Well, I aspire to be a master of my craft. *nods head sagely* This was a very difficult piece to write, just because of how deep the storyline was. I felt that the depth was so profound, that the only way to write it, was to leave all that depth totally to the imagination of the reader! You know, some writers leave nothing to the imagination. Well, with this piece, I was going for 'leaving everything to the imagination.'

Totally kidding.

This is actually based of a story I dictated to my father when I was 6. Except that the bad guy came back like, 7 more times

Glad you appreciated the awfulness though!

This thread is totes mgoats awesome sauce.

 

One day I went to the park and in the park I saw a dog and the dog was brown and i liked the dog because it was soft and fluffy.There were trees and grass and the sun was smiling at me and it was a happy day. Then suddenly out of nowhere a ninja jumped up from the bushes and threw his ninja stars at me! I ducked and took out my gun and started firing. He jumped everywhere dodging my bullets. The dog looked at us. Suddenly there was smoke every where and I couldn't see the ninja had blinded me so I couldn't see him so that he would have the advantage.

I saw the slide and ran towards it looking for cover from the ninja and I saw the dog running after me. I said Here doggy come be safe with me.

When I was under the slide I hid because I still couldn't see so I patted the dog when suddenly he bit me! Then the ninja knew where I was and threw a ninja star into my brain. And then I died.

The End.