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Every aspiring writer should read terrible books (2022) [video]

by vanilla-almond on 9/5/23, 2:33 PM with 83 comments

• by weeksie on 9/7/23, 1:13 PM

  The best way to read terrible fiction is to join a critique group and read other amateurs. This is good because you can run across different levels of writers:

  * People who have no business writing and have no idea what they're doing. These are not going to give you much, which is why you want to keep to groups that have some gatekeeping.

  * Beginners who are not that talented but can develop skill. These people are good because you can see what it looks like to go from nothing to something, even if that something isn't great

  * Untalented people who are workhorses and can do the job: these people are probably the most valuable "bad writers"

  * Talented people who suck. These people are also amazing because you can see the power of skill as it develops

  * Talented people who are very good. (These won't be in your group)

  But really all this about "analyze why the book sucks" is a red herring. What is far more instructive is understanding why something that you don't like is appealing. If you can find what works in something you don't like, it's a lot more likely that you'll be able to understand that technique.

  Best selling thrillers with bad dialog and paper characters? Great. That means you can focus on the pacing and plot and understand why the book works despite its obvious flaws. That's harder though because it isn't just stroking your own ego by saying "aw I could do that"

• by suzzer99 on 9/7/23, 7:58 AM

  I used to do standup comedy at the mostly amateur level. One woman who was always at the same shows was so unfunny, she could suck the life out of any room.

  I always tried to study her, thinking that if I could understand the essence of why she was so deeply unfunny, I could understand the secret to being funny.

  Sadly I could never figure it out. Her unfunniness was inscrutable.

• by circlefavshape on 9/7/23, 10:08 AM

  I guy I know self-published a book, and it was obvious more or less from the first page that he'd never actually read more than a handful of books in his life

  Right at the start there's a scene with a bunch of people in a nightclub, and when describing someone he uses the phrase "with a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle" - a colloquial phrase in Ireland meaning someone looks sour (see https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Face%20like%...)

  ... but he misplaced a comma, and the sentence he actually wrote was

  "Maria, of course, standing close by with a face like a bulldog, licking piss off a nettle."

  Terrible book, but almost worth reading just for that image

• by 1letterunixname on 9/7/23, 5:52 AM

  It was a dark and stormy night. The characters were one-dimensional clichés who died just as quickly as they arrived. There was no continuity at all, no foreshadowing, and a snap ending. Even more impressively, suspension of disbelief was impossible because it jumped around like a fucking ping-pong-ball without any purpose, detail, or depth; saying "fuck you" to the entire genre of magical realism. In addition, it was marketed as a sci-fi western romance novel mystery adventure detective novel. Also, they had a terrible editor. But thankfully, they also had a terrible literary agent, so no one but a retired grandmother of 5 read it after purchasing it without thinking for 50 cents at the library's book sale. The end.

  PS: Also, have a plain dust jacket. Never nuclear pink, orange, or yellow.

• by atleastoptimal on 9/7/23, 8:11 AM

  Also I recommend reading mediocre books. Especially first time authors. They're the best way to be on the other side of someone reading your first book. It's easy for anyone with a college education to avoid being truly terrible, but the middling eternity of mediocrity is a far harder to navigate out of.

• by cocacola1 on 9/7/23, 5:17 AM

  He should write some bad books.

  Jokes aside, though, Moore is probably a top 10 author for me. I don't think I've read anything of his that I haven't enjoyed, and what I have read, I've enjoyed heads & shoulders above – and remember much more in detail, thanks to the book nature of it all – anything else.

• by fumeux_fume on 9/7/23, 4:42 AM

  The man is an absolute treasure. A group of friends and I used to have a terrible book club. We read a lot of crap but it made me better understand what I valued in good writing. It was fun and surprisingly insightful.

• by touisteur on 9/7/23, 1:16 PM

  One of the worst, and best reading experiences I get is anything long-form Frédéric Beigbeder. It's all over the place, always too much, showing off (both in style, dialogues, plots...), inconsistent, I find myself shaking my head or sighing most of the book, every damn time.

  And then, the bastard manages to turn his stories around and do something often good, sometimes great of it. Not sure whether it's on purpose or he's just a short-story stretching too much... But if you read most of it, it's very very bad. But add the endings or the small moments of grace and suddenly it's great. Ugh.

• by Borrible on 9/7/23, 8:57 AM

  A problem that should not be underestimated is that many aspiring writers do not know how to recognize a bad book, which is why they write many of them themselves.

• by cafard on 9/7/23, 1:02 PM

  Don't most aspiring writers already do so, for some value of terrible? S.J. Perelman wrote a series of pieces, "Cloudland Revisited" about the books and movies that thrilled him when he was young but didn't stand up to later reading or viewing. Mark Twain's essay "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" is a classic, though on the other hand you might want to have a look at D.H. Lawrence and Yvor Winters on Cooper before giving up entirely.

• by watwut on 9/7/23, 9:50 AM

  I kinda tried that with speaking and it blew back immensely and honestly only harmed me.

  Focusing on other people faults and trying to avoid them made me super aware of any theoretical imperfection in what I was doing without making me able to do something actually good. I was not improving at all, I was just increasingly scared to do anything, because more and more words/acts whatever resembled something bad someone have done.

• by nottorp on 9/7/23, 7:59 AM

  Isn't it ironic that this advice is in a ... video?

• by kristopolous on 9/7/23, 5:52 AM

  I find it inspiring because it shows how low the bar is with persistence and effort

• by Ekaros on 9/7/23, 8:47 AM

  I think there might be also a point with decent enough books that go horribly horribly wrong at some point. Forever Free is great example... It really shows how multiple Deus Ex Machina can ruin the whole thing...

• by bowsamic on 9/7/23, 1:56 PM

  He has a great Dudley accent (even though he's from Northampton)

• by tzury on 9/7/23, 8:40 AM

  So, reading really bad code should aspire great developers, right?

• by Octokiddie on 9/7/23, 3:02 PM

  Has anyone ever written a book on what makes bad writing?

• by lsmeducation on 9/7/23, 7:56 AM

  I read the internet regularly, does that count?

• by greenie_beans on 9/7/23, 2:27 PM

  faulkner said it first