Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!
August 1, 2007 by J.C. Hewitt
Do you want to write a novel? Most people try to write a good novel and fail. Dare to be different. Try writing a bad novel instead. If you finish, you will have either succeeded in writing a bad novel or failed and written a good novel. It’s a win/win situation. Here’s a guide to writing an absolutely terrible novel. The path is clear. All you have to do is follow it.
- Remember that real writers use a typewriter. They don’t like these newfangled computers. A manual typewriter and a bucket of Wite-Out™ are the tools of a serious writer.
- Never pick an average name that a regular person would have. Go with something that explains the character. If your character is a cop on the edge, then try a manly nickname coupled with the name of a gun — something like Rip Magnum.
- If your book is about a real person, just alter their name and location slightly — Jorge M. Bushe, Presidente of the Federated Territories.
- Make sure you’ve got a lot of similar names too. Donald, Donna, Dina, Dana and Danny just feel right together.
- Make sure that the good guys are clearly good and the bad guys are overwhelming evil. Don’t confuse your readers by having all the characters have good qualities and bad ones.
- Explain everything. When your character is angry, just say that she’s angry. There’s no point in trying to show that through her actions when you can just tell that to your reader.
- Don’t explain anything. Why did your villain spend the whole book clutching a blanket? Leave it up to the readers. They’ll fill in the blanks.
- Pile on the adjectives and adverbs. Why have a woman speak when you can have her whisper breathlessly in her lustful, wind-swept voice?
- Fill your book with coincidences, especially towards the end. Nothing beats having the exciting climax occur because the hero bumped into the villain in a small-town cafe when they both had a craving for peach-filled semi-sweet chocolate pie. Did you mention that both characters love the exact same pie? Now would be a good time.
- Don’t let your character’s established traits get in the way of a good plot twist. Just because your hero is a priest who preaches non-violence (We’ll call him Father Angeltoe) doesn’t mean he can’t be an expert marksman with an itchy trigger finger.
- Use lots of technical jargon. Don’t worry about whether your reader will understand it, or whether you understand it. Just stick it in. It will make your characters sound smarter.
- If you are writing a historical novel, don’t sweat accuracy. The reader won’t care. Go ahead and have Napoleon invent the automatic rifle. Who could say he didn’t?
- If you are writing fantasy literature, make sure your magical animals have never been thought of before. Try a talking armadillo. No, forget the talking armadillo. I want that one for myself.
- Make sure to add …A Novel to the end of your title. You don’t want people to forget what they are reading.
- Don’t feel as if anything has to happen. Plots are optional. Two people sitting in a room staring at each other is great material, as long as it is handled with plenty of adjectives and adverbs (see tip five).
- Exclamation points! Exclamation points! Exclamation points!
- Ellipses too…
- Don’t sweat the order of the action. If the big football game needs to occur just after the prom, then that is when it should be.
- Nothing beats a catch phrase! I call Snoogity Bottom.
- Brothers are always very different and they always argue about everything. Never portray brothers who are similar and get along unless they are twins (except if one is an evil twin). If they are twins they must finish each other’s sentences and no one should be able to tell them apart.
- Sisters must always steal each other’s boyfriends. Additionally, one sister must be outgoing and the other must be quiet and serious. This makes no difference to the boyfriend though, he’ll gladly dump either for the other.
- Don’t start your novel with an interesting event. Take a few dozen pages to explain everything that would lead up to that interesting event. The reader will gladly hang around until you get to the point.
- Don’t make your secondary characters interesting. It will just detract from the main characters. Lesser characters don’t need reasons for their actions. They are just there to keep the plot moving.
- If the plot seems to slow down, give someone a gun or a knife and kill off one of those secondary characters you don’t care about anyway.
- Writing a book about vampires? You probably don’t need any help making it bad, but you should definitely make sure you show how cool it is to be a vampire and make up your own rules for the way vampires can die or have sex.
- If you are writing about sports, make it clear that sports always provide important life lessons. Make sure the novel has one obsessive and one downtrodden coach.
- If you want to write a serious novel, make sure the main character is jaded and has lost interest in life. This anti-hero must view all other people as phonies, fakes or idiots. The character should experiment with drugs and sex. At some point the character should watch someone die or at least be assaulted. At no point should the anti-hero feel any real pleasure. Happy endings are strictly prohibited.
- Writing a mystery? Make sure the clues are really obvious or really obscure. Either way, your hero will be the only person who can piece these things together. At some point they must accuse the wrong person and be ridiculed for it. In the end though, they should deliver a speech that explains exactly how everything happened.
- Character conversations should always be used to explain what is happening and how people are feeling. It is perfectly natural to have a character explain to his office mate (whose brother is a bank president) that he used to be a safe cracker, but now he just wants to go straight.
- Don’t forget to use italics when you want to emphasize something.
- At the end of the book, you must have the main character reach an important and life-changing epiphany. Make that epiphany really obvious. Don’t worry about why they had one, just make sure they had it so the reader knows the book is ending.
- Editing is just a waste of time. Spell check it and move on.
For more information:
- Writing Your Way Out of a Wet Paper Sack
- 10 Ways to Make Editors Hate You Before They Even Know You
- 40 Fabulous Faults of Freelance Failures
- Top 12 Signs that the Fantasy Novel You’re Working on has Gone Horribly Awry
I stumbled upon your list of bad-novel tips.
If a writer wants to do a really long saga or Important historical novel, all the characters should have nicknames, probably more than one, to keep reader interestup.
If you are writing about sports, the team/protagonist must win the last game (closely and possibly unexpectedly).
Love the instructions for writing a bad novel!! Give me more!!!
Great tips. Another one I’ve noticed, although this is more for a series of novels, is if a plotline or group of two-dimensional characters ain’t completely broken, then why fix it?
You can use the same characters and plot structures again and again in novel after novel (e.g. a ritual murder, a guy in a wheelchair with secret motives, a love interest related to a murder victim, etc etc). It’s worked for Dan Brown!
Those are some good tips. Thats the beauty of writing a bad novel. There are so many ways to do it. Multiple nicknames is an excellent tip!
It makes sense – I want to try it sometime! And this is what I’ll also throw in:
- Use stereotypes liberally. Cowboys are always macho and have a stubble beard. Computer specialists/hackers wear glasses and don’t have girlfriends… (mind the ellipse)
- For science fiction, concentrate on the fiction and ignore the science. Who cares how long it takes to travel 10 gazillion light years anyway?
- Do jump between different time lines/plots every paragraph. Readers can keep track, can’t they?
the sport team should go an emotional agony before winning the last match of the movie
Kill off somebody of significant importance, and then bring him back on the next page.
“#22. Don’t start your novel with an interesting event. Take a few dozen pages to explain everything that would lead up to that interesting event. The reader will gladly hand around until you get to the point.”
The reader will gladly HANG* around until you get to the point.
great list
p.s. that sounded sarcasatic but it wasn’t, I really enjoyed it
Thanks for the Edit
Why is that picture of my dad used for this article?
These are terrific, and here’s one more: Follow slavishly any advice about writing that you found published…anywhere. For example, that opening sentences of bestsellers should be twelve words long and contain three adjectives, two adverbs, and precisely one comma. Or that every chapter of a mystery must end with the sleuth thoughtfully posing a long list of obvious questions: “Does the knife sticking out of Charlie really mean he’s dead? Would Agnes have run away if she weren’t guilty? And what about Naomi?” Above all, weight all advice equally, without critical evaluation. In fact, don’t even bother noting who gave the advice. Your time is much better spent writing it down so you can follow it right away.
Awesome advice Michelle. I’m writing it down right now!
i) make the bad guy’s foreign in some way
ii) make sure there is a very bad guy
iii) make sure your hero is very good at having sex, and the sex is described using tip 5 above. That way the reader feels as if s/he is also good at having sex
iv) don’t use stream of consciousness – tell the reader what the characters are thinking and why they do things
v) don’t bother describing things, just make sure things are happening all the time
vi) alternatively, describe everything in great detail, because that’s what writing is
vii) novels should be long, at least 400 pages
viii) if you’re not sure what should happen next, have someone hit your hero over the head
ix) alcohol makes characters interesting
x) don’t worry too much about misusing apostrophes
Good tips X. Although I’ve read some gloriously bad stream of consciousness, so I think that can go both ways.
The hero and the anti-hero must be in some way related. They are either twins and have known each other throughout their lives, or it is only revealed at the climax of the novel.
Make your main female character strong and knowledgable about anything import, but have an extremely dull personality. Therefore, the woman will solve all the problems, and have no other use whatsoever.
*important.
Also make sure she can spell.
This will help with NaNoWriMo this year!
All are great to go by, but try this, just when you think that your main character can’t get any duller, just keep on reading and you’ll find that it may take longer than you thought to read this book. You may need a little more time. P.S. that man looks strangly large and familiar.
Who knows how bad a book really is until you read it yourself, when you hate it you know it’s bad!! For instance, what if your main character has a love interest, then all of a sudden kills herself for no apparent reason by chapter 2. Then, say your reading a novel and you just start, when it takes 20 minutes to read the first page, you know it’s bad. Other than that you look forward to finding out if the main character is mute or not. Although you did fing out that her wardrobe is outstandingly huge and her first breath did last longer than one should. But she is excited about her first day….. Somewhere?
Write it backwards. Start with the ending and then add on to that till you figure out how it started.
Sprinkled lots of weird punctuation marks through the dialog.
Always make sure you never use a characters name with their dialog. Use only pronouns.
String as many sentences together with the word ‘and’ that you possibly can. Periods are extremely expensive.
Even if you’re writing an existential novel about the meaninglessness of the universe and your protagonist is a morbid athiest in the grip of suicidal angst, try to remember that everybody loves a happy ending!
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This is one thing I don’t have a problem with!!
#30: James Patterson, we’re talking to you.
Don’t forget to liberally sprinkle brand names over every chapter. Why describe shoes when you can use Prada? Why say gin and tonic when you can specify? Your readers need to know exactly what expensive brand is being used or consumed by your characters. As an added bonus, it makes product placement pitching for the screenplay simple!
“Remember that real writers use a typewriter. They don’t like these newfangled computers. A manual typewriter and a bucket of Wite-Out™ are the tools of a serious writer.”
That is the most ridiculous piece of writing advice that I have ever heard.
Too bad many of the actual published, professional writers today would not agree with you on that point.
haha, mis-read, I thought it was your advice to write a novel badly by avoiding typewriters and white-out!
JAR,
You Just made my night.
If your novel is a fantasy, make one race a bipedal, talking version of you favorite pet.
Works for Science fiction too.
Westerns, not so much.
If your novel is really stalled, simply break the “fourth wall” and talk directly to the readers as the author. Or have yourself “fall” through your desk into the book as a character.
People will find this idea fresh and inventive.
HI everyone! Look does it matter if writing is good or bad? Just get started! People always seem to lack confidence, so I say come one folks get tapping on those typewriter keys and even if it is rubbish you will feel creative and eventually get better! Its like everything, a lot of practice goes a long way! Come visit me at my site! Anything is possible when you set your mind to it!!
Look up this book! Searching for Mooneyes’ , if this chick could do it so can you!!
Guaranteed formula. Include all the article recommendations and comments plus:
Make the bad guy so bad that any dirt bag can be a hero.
Kill off enough characters so that there is only one left for our dirt bag to save.
Be democratic: kill off dirt bags, public servants (redundant) and innocent bystanders by the dozen so we can praise our (no better than us) tardy, inept, and stupid dirt bag.
Kill off his loyal associate by mistake, maybe his wife and family; and the neighbors just in case, as well as someone’s naked girl friend to show just what indiscriminate sex leads to.
Expect several movie sequels; maybe a TV series.
[...] Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How! — My most popular article this year [...]
[...] Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How! [...]
Your “want to write a novel badly?” is hysterical. AND I learned something. thanks
Hello, a good list of “not to do things”
I believe it’s worth publishing at the forum for writers and decided to post a part of it here http://www.writersclub.net/help_and_suggestions/want_to_write_a_novel_badly-t137.0.html
Hope you are not against.
Great list; I really enjoyed it!
Here’s another idea. Write an 800 page mega-novel that abruptly ends without the slightest hint of a conclusion and is followed by this phrase:
“Probably nobody’s bothered reading this far, so I’m done writing. Goodbye.”
-The Author
[...] as important is learning what to avoid when writing. Check out this humorous list titled “Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How.” At [...]
I think the proper term for number 28 is “The Scooby Doo”. Extra points if you use the line, “I would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for that/those darn (protagonist)”.
And don’t forget to obviously foreshadow or allude to some mysterious connection between events, then spend the next 150 pages dispelling your readers’ suspicions, before telling the reader that the haggard waitress in chapter 1 was your missing person… and the protagonists’ mother. Because readers love it when you piss them off.
This is CLASSIC stuff.
Very funny.
You had me rolling.
But I’m glad I didn’t read this BEFORE I wrote my recently released first novel, DARK LILLY E., or else it would have put a damper on my enthusiasm, and I may not have written the story at all..
Honestly… I did half of the things you mentioned… (including the elipses and italics) and it wound up being one heck of a story; or so I am told.
I’ve found that if you want to be a writer… forget any and all rules, and just WRITE.
There’s no other way.
And as far as what you write being good or bad…
We live in a country where people buy ‘Pet Rocks’ by the millions, and where there is no accounting for a persons taste in literature: something James Patterson has been exploiting to the tune of millions.
Anyway, once again. Classic stuff.
I am printing this and sticking on my wall!
Make sure there is no original material in your novel. Plagiarise the worst aspects of every bad novel you can lay your hands on and mix that material into your own novel but do it badly, as in my new novel “The Whimsical Whispering Armadillo”. Sorry John but I think the rights to use that idea lapsed some time ago.
“Writing a book about vampires? You probably don’t need any help making it bad, but you should definitely make sure you show how cool it is to be a vampire and make up your own rules for the way vampires can die or have sex.”
That HAS to be a shoutout to Twilight. Right?
I love the list by the way.
@#27: I love Bret Easton Ellis!
this is very funny but it makes me want to delete all my stuff…
bletes last blog post..FINAL_2
Oh, and make sure you never ever research biology, maladies, or diseases; and–this is really important–do NOT wonder if there might be serious consequences when somebody gets bashed unconscious. It happens in movies all the time, so it must be plausible. In fact, if you find that you must reasearch, just watch movies about your chosen topic. I reccommend James Bond especially–only not Casino Royale, that one was way unrealistic. (Seriously now, bloody knuckles after punching people? How droll.)
Also, if any of your fans do anything to piss you off, take ball and go home. Serves them right. Only continue work if they beg for at least a year. (Not just any begging, mind you, but really piteous grovelling.)
Allyson Wonderland, Eddie Izzard? Anything that relates to him is awesome, so I donno about your advice!
Don’t forget that your hero needs to make a choice between saving a busload of people and the one he (or she) loves. Of course, he can save both in the end. If he doesn’t, then he mourns for the loss, but gets over it in the end with something corny like, “We all have to make hard decisions, but we can’t change them, so we have to just get over it.” Or perhaps something miraculous happens. The person/people live, for example.
Make tons of comparisons: “Hannah looked like a rose and felt like a baby’s bottom in her dress that looked like J-Lo’s. Her boyfriend Mark looked just like early-days, scruffy Brad Pitt and spoke in the same sexy voice as Mel Gibson in Disney’s Pocahontas. They looked into each others eyes, like magnets drawn to one another and then fucked like corn and multiplied like bunnies.”
Use lots of clichés.
Mess up your tenses.
Say “you” all of a sudden. Ex.: “Then she went up to her room. She decided to do some stretches. You should stretch because they’re good for you. After that…”
All villains should be Nazis or Muslims. Better yet, a Nazi Muslim.
Enjoyed the list. I found another similar one (not by me) called How to Write Suckitudinous Fiction. It even has a funny made-up word.
“Writing a book about vampires? You probably don’t need any help making it bad, but you should definitely make sure you show how cool it is to be a vampire and make up your own rules for the way vampires can die or have sex.”
Wow. That’s a bit harsh. You could’ve talked about any creature – werewolves, for example – and making up the rules is a good thing. Why focus on this when there are so many worse things to do in a novel?
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sadly, most of the best selling books around obey all of this nonsense – Yes, you Dan, and you J.K.
on another note……I found a book in a secondhand shop- a guide for authors to the range of projectile weapons available, and the typical wounds that they produce at different ranges- this thing was as thick as a telephone directory, and probably the most depressing volume I have ever handled…still- it has saved me reading any “SAS” or “Mercenary” rubbish, Kalashnokov at 50 meters, aimed for the skull anyone?
Lmao dude best thing about writing ever. I’m gonna go give this to my english teacher. She’ll love it °¬° Oh and what’s really funny about this is that a lot of the books I’ve read that have been “wildly popular” and “raved about by critics” contain at least 5 of those traits.
Exactly right, the stepping stones of novel failure.
# Writing a book about vampires? You probably don’t need any help making it bad, but you should definitely make sure you show how cool it is to be a vampire and make up your own rules for the way vampires can die or have sex.
Aww, poor vampire novels. Is this to say that simply because it is a vampire novel it is gauranteed to be bad? Because Fledgling by Octavia Butler was a good vampire novel although this comment seems to be more geared towards True Blood or that hack Stephanie Meyers.
Rip Magnum
Yes, very good, but like Sibelius said,
“A statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!”
No, you’ve just got to do it. I just finished my first novel. I’ve read so many of these type of things that I have no idea if it is any good. I don’t really care. I’m going to submit it to appropriate agents anyway and start writing my second. It’s better than spending my evenings watching tv.
I am hoping they give Ebert a statue.
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