It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.

~ P.g. Wodehouse

P.g. Wodehouse Authors Bad Writing Dullness Humor Writing

Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do― to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.

~ Stephen King

Stephen King Bad Writing Fiction Good Writing Writing

When reading a book, one hopes it doesn’t turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do is grab a hatchet, slice off its head, and bury it.

~ Chila Woychik

Chila Woychik Bad Writing Creativity On Being A Rat Writing Writing Life

This too to remember. If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes. If he mystifies to avoid a straight statement, which is very different from breaking so-called rules of syntax or grammar to make an efffect which can be obtained in no other way, the writer takes a longer time to be known as a fake and other writers who are afflicted by the same necessity will praise him in their own defense. True mysticism should not be confused with incompetence in writing which seeks to mystify where there is no mystery but is really only the necessity to fake to cover lack of knowledge or the inability to state clearly. Mysticism implies a mystery and there are many mysteries; but incompetence is not one of them; nor is overwritten journalism made literature by the injection of a false epic qulaity. Remember this too: all bad writers are in love with the epic.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Bad Writing Writing

I think the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. When there are many writers all employing the same idiom, all looking out on more or less the same social scene, the individual writer will have to be more than ever careful that he isn't just doing badly what has already been done to completion. The presence alone of Faulkner in our midst makes a great difference in what the writer can and cannot permit himself to do. Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track the Dixie Limited is roaring down.

~ Flannery O'connor

Flannery O'connor Bad Writing Great Writers Imitation Literature Novelist Originality Writers

A person who wrote badly did better than a person who does not write at all. A bad writing can be corrected. An empty page remains an empty page.

~ Israelmore Ayivor

Israelmore Ayivor Authors Bad Writing Editing Editor Empty Page Israelmore Ayivor Page Publishing Writers Writing

…After all, it isn't really difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as most people seem to get nowadays.

~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy L. Sayers Bad Writing Good Story Good Writing Stories Storytelling Syntax Well Written Writers Writing

You can't be a good writer in the States anymore because to be a good one you have to have a country where you can be poor and still eat, and still make your living standard secondary to your writing. Thoreau himself couldn't do that in the States today.

~ Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren Bad Writing Cost Of Living Good Writing Standard Of Living Writers Writing

Write at a pace that doesn't surpass your creative flow. Don't be hasty; don't be sloppy. Don't forfeit impressive writing for an impressive word count. Because eventually it will all have to be edited, and you'll find that it is harder to make bad writing good than to make good writing better.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Richelle E. Goodrich Bad Writing Good Writing Hasty Rewriting Richelle Richelle Goodrich Sloppy Writers Writing

If a story is no good, being based on Hamlet won't save it.

~ Thomas C. Foster

Thomas C. Foster Bad Writing Hamlet Stories Writing

Heresy is usually quite sophisticated, actually has a meaning, and is to be taken very seriously. It is therefore to be carefully distinguished from turgid, pretentious, badly-written Bullsgeshichte, to use the technical German theological term.

~ Carl R. Trueman

Carl R. Trueman Bad Writing Heresy Theology

Because I want to have sex with him--and because that's sinful--I'm blushing and flushing furiously under his scrutinizing scrutiny.

~ Jess C. Scott

Jess C. Scott Bad Writing Crime Fiction Drama E L James Fifty Shades Fifty Shades Of Grey Love Obsession Parody Satire Sex Sexuality Snark Social Criticism Stephenie Meyer Twilight

A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.

~ Don Roff

Don Roff Bad Writing Day Finish The Race Inspiration No Writing Writing Writing Process Writing Tip

Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!

~ Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll Bad Writing Confusion Humor Jargon Writing