BAD WRITING -- GOOD FOR LAUGHS

This morning, I took a break from my own writing and picked up "Three Seconds," the "award-winning" Swedish crime novel.

I opened it arbitrarily somewhere in the middle (Page 174, by chance) and read a paragraph at random. The writing was so clunky that I burst out laughing. So bad, yet so funny.

Here's why: It was exposition thinly disguised as dialogue. People don't talk like this, in real life or in good fiction. Nobody ever says this stuff.

Here is the graf:

"I love you. I love Hugo. I love Rasmus. I love this house. I love knowing that there's someone who calls me my husband and someone else who calls me Daddy. I didn't know it was possible. I've gotten used to it. I'm completely dependent on it now."  

It sounds like complete and utter horseshit. Like what some horse's ass would say on the Oprah show, a festival of bullshit if there ever was one.

The problem is, these people don't know bad writing when they see it. They probably don't know good writing when they see it. That's too bad. It's sad.

But anyway, it handed me a good laugh.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle