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How To Write Badly Well is a blog of writing snippets written by Joel Stickley. Each snippet is an attempt to exemplify some particular form of Bad Writing.

Tropes used or criticized include:

• Accidental Innuendo: "Blunder into double entendres."
• Asspull: "Write yourself out of a corner."
• Because Destiny Says So: "Use 'fate' as a plot device."
• Character Derailment: "Suddenly change characters' motivations."invoked
• The Chris Carter Effect: "Refuse to resolve mysteries."invoked
• Creator Breakdown: "Write as therapy."
• Dead Baby Comedy: "Make light of tragedy."
• Department of Redundancy Department: "Include unneccessary linguistic redundancies of language."
• Filler Strip: "Rely on unsolicited submissions."
• For the Evulz: "Make your villain genuinely evil."
• Funetik Aksent: "Give your characters distinctive idioms."
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: "Censor your characters."
• Long Title: "Cram as much information and detail into the title as you can, even if this means sacrificing the readability of said title and somewhat stealing the thunder of the main body of the work itself, which is left only really being able to reiterate what has already been said in the title, which was itself clumsy and repetitious."
• Most Writers Are Writers: "Write to prove a point."
• Parody: The Homage WeekNon-Contiguous Homage Fortnight, which includes stylistic parodies of:
  • The Bible: here.
  • Raymond Chandler: here.
  • Charles Dickens: here.
  • Ernest Hemingway: here.
  • James Joyce: here.
  • H.P. Lovecraft: here.
  • Vladimir Nabokov: here.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien: here.
  • P. G. Wodehouse: here.
• Narm: "Fail to see the funny side."
• Plot Detour: "Delay the ending."
• Plot-Induced Stupidity: "Sacrifice motivation for the sake of plotting."
• Rouge Angles of Satin / Malaproper: "Find the bone mote."
• Schedule Slip: "Miss deadlines."
• Shown Their Work: "Include passing references to major historical events."
• Take That, Audience!: "Alienate your existing readership"
• That Makes Me Feel Angry:" Let your characters explain themselves."
• Trapped By Mountain Lions: "Create subplots which bear no relation to the main story."

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How NOT to Write a Novel

Books on Trope

The RPG Cliches Game