Yet More Bad Writing Advice

Ten Telltale Signs Your Writing Sucks!

And how NOT to improve it

1. You’re Conscious of “Read Time”

For those of you clever enough to have worked out how to preview a copy of your work before you publish it, you’ll know that you can get the read time.

This has destroyed my writing.

I no longer write for coherence. I write in ‘3’ or ‘4’ minute time frames. I can write a 20-minute piece detailing the construction of the Eiffel Tower, only to cut it down to 180 seconds.

Anyone referring to it in a hundred years' time, hoping to reconstruct civilization after Armageddon, will end up building Eiffel Towers the size of matchboxes.

2. You Can’t Stop Thinking About ChatGPT

It’s five past midnight, and you’re slogging out an article on 5th century siphon systems in the Euphrates valley (that was Iraq before we blew it to pieces) when ChatGPT filters into your brain, because you recently read an article entitled:

“Why bother writing anything, when Chap GPT can do it for you!”

You’re thinking the same thing. Why bother?

But after another hour of deep contemplation, you decide that’s unethical and so spend the whole night finishing a piece no one will ever read.

3. You’ve Copied Wikipedia By Accident

Have you ever done this? You’ve finished your piece, and you’re ready to publish when you flick to Wikipedia to check a fact. Only to discover you’ve inadvertently copied the text word for word.

It’s not that you’ve copied it — you’ve never even looked at it — it’s just that your writing is so pedestrian, that without knowing it, you’ve mimicked Wikipedia writers by accident.

4. Excessive Use of Short Paragraphs

This is one of my specialities.

You fool the reader into thinking

something big is about to be said

by putting in lots of very short paragraphs

When really the writer is just killing

time.

He or she will then put in a line break

for no reason

whatsoever.

5. Senseless Use of Photos And Images

Because you’ve got nothing to say, you break up the tedium of your prose with images.

This is to impress the reader with your knowledge of clip-art vectors. But in short, it just makes you look like an idiot.

6. You Realize You Were a Better Writer Before You Started

I can vouch for this.

Ten years ago I was a brilliant writer. I had an award-winning blog about my life in Lyon as a teacher and it was really good.

It was funny. It made sense. It was well-written. It didn’t have any photos. Each story ended with a point. And no one ever highlighted it.

7. You’re Wondering If David Perlmutter Will Like Your Piece

Everyone knows he rigorously highlights our work. But does he like it? If he goes to the trouble of highlighting, perhaps we should write stuff he likes.

I therefore sometimes incorporate superheroes into my pieces (Dave’s speciality), only to delete them after he’s finished highlighting.

(I bet you didn’t know that David.)

8. You Can’t Finish Pieces!

I’m the master of this.

I can happily write a piece about Dutch cooking, get bored with it, and decide to wrap it up as quick as possible.

But how?

Nothing I’ve said in the proceeding 1000 words is of any interest, so I need a killer line to make the reader think they’ve read something interesting, when in fact they’ve just read a recipe.

There are various ways I do this, but the best is to simply stop in mid…

9. Rolling Business News Is Suddenly More Important

You’re in real trouble when this happens. Bored by your puerile prose, you find it your patriotic duty to monitor business news with the fervour of a bank CEO.

After years of being a nihilist Marxist, dedicated to the ending of capitalism, you’re suddenly obsessed with the money markets.

“Hey, Phil, have you finished that piece on smashing the world banking structure with violent revolution yet?”

“Forget that, the Yen’s falling!”

10. You Keep Repeating Yourself

This is the last nail in that already full coffin. When you start rewriting pieces you wrote two years ago, but have no memory of writing them.

Pieces like

“Ten Telltale Signs Your Writing Sucks!”

If you ever get to this point— not that you’ll know — I advise folding down the top of your laptop, deleting your Medium subscription, and taking a few years off to think about why you’ve just wasted two years of your life.

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