bad writing Archives — Kyle A. Massa

Bad Writing

My grandparents on my dad’s side were famous for never wasting anything. This is not a statement of hyperbole.

For instance, instead of killing dandelions in her yard, my grandmother served them as salad toppers. Also, my grandfather once removed every rusty nail from every board of a dismantled shed, then stored the nails in buckets in the basement for future use.

See? Nothing wasted.

I take after them in this respect, though my waste refusal has nothing to do with dandelions or rusty nails. Mine is all about writing.

I can’t discard my writing. No matter how bad it is, no matter how unreadable, I can’t write anything without using it somehow. So, this blog post is all about my lousiest work. I could (probably should) throw it out, but instead I’m sharing it with you. Hope you get a kick out of it—and maybe a few helpful tips along the way.

Pages of the Mirror

This pretentiously artsy script was my senior thesis project at Ithaca College in 2014. This was back when I feared nobody would take me seriously if I wrote comedy, so the resulting piece is emo, dull, and ultimately lousy.

Pages of the Mirror is about some dude named Danny who lives in a small town and is beloved by everyone, for some reason. When his equally beloved Uncle Jack (car mechanic with tattoos who listens to Metallica, of course) gets murdered, Danny becomes the prime suspect.

Plus, there’s an intertwined story of a mysterious fellow mysteriously named “The Writer” who’s working on a mysterious book and who continues to be generally mysterious, because I decided all this mystery would be intriguing. We soon discover this is a story within a story; the Writer is writing about Danny.

At the time, I thought this was clever. Looking back, the connection between the two stories was probably immediately obvious. Plus, it’s a classically egomaniacal story for a writer to write. (What if my writing became so good it came to life!?) I recall pulling an all-nighter the night before it was due, which is probably why I only got a B. But look at me now—I got blog content out of it.

My takeaway from this project: When you’re developing your voice, you might strike a few sour notes. Just clear your throat and keep singing.

“Apocalypse Now…or Never”

It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been writing on this here blog now for 10 years. If you explore my archives, you’ll find some bad writing. Perhaps the worst was my first ever blog post, entitled “Apocalypse Now…or Never.”

The title isn’t terrible; it’s the rest that’s ugly. Just check out this leadoff sentence:

“I’m having a hard time buying this ‘2012: World is Going to End’ crap.”

I wrote this sentence when I was 19, yet it makes me sound like I’m 60. Also, I’m pretty sure the punctuation is incorrect.

Things don’t improve from there. My intro paragraph is a block of text, and I somehow venture into a rant about Ozzy Osbourne possibly being a zombie. I don’t even address my anti-apocalypse stance until paragraph eight, and when I finally get to it, I use a funfetti cake as a metaphor.

If you want to read just how bad this blog post was, you can find it here. My takeaway: Writing gets better with age. I’m not some premier blogger, but this blog is certainly better than it was a decade ago. Second takeaway: I was right about the world not ending in 2012. Yay me.

Pleasant Street

This is another college project, though Pleasant Street was a short story, not a script. It’s so bad that I’ve actually written about it before. Not sure this is something I should brag about, but here goes…

This story has it all: A doofus protagonist, heavy-handed symbolism, clumsy language, geriatric cannibals. What more could you ask for?

Well, if you’re asking for competent plotting, compelling characters, or an interesting setting, look elsewhere. Pleasant Street is about a first-time cop named Officer Green (I warned you about the heavy-handedness) who’s assigned to walk the beat in a neighborhood called Pleasant Street. See? Because it’s called Pleasant Street, you’d never expect anything bad might happen. Brilliant misdirection.

As it happens, the residents of Pleasant Street have achieved eternal life via cannibalism. (I partially lifted this idea from an episode of The X-Files, so my apologies to Mulder and Scully.) Rather predictably, the story concludes with the main character being cooked and eaten. I would’ve offered a spoiler warning, but no one will ever read this story again—I’ve made sure of it.

As for the grade on this assignment, I don’t recall it. Perhaps my mind is repressing it to defend me. But here’s what I do remember: I never collected feedback on this piece. If I did, maybe someone might’ve told me it needed work. So that’s our takeaway for this story. Get feedback from people you trust, then use it if it works.

“10 Bold Predictions for the Future of Magic: The Gathering”

Yes, I know most readers will not care about Magic, let alone understand it. If you were to browse this article, you’d find such esoteric phrases as “enemy fetch lands,” “two-block paradigm,” and “Kaseto comes along in the new Commander product.”

However, I’m including this article because of my low success rate on these so-called bold predictions. To be clear, the writing is actually passable; I had some decent wisecracks, including a dig at Jar-Jar Binks (timeless). The issue is, I only got five of my 10 predictions right!

I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just say this: We must deliver on our promises to our readers—especially when the promise is right in the title.

“Someday”

I’ve saved the worst for last. You think my poetry is bad now? Just check out this poem from May 5th, 2011, for a creative writing class at Ithaca College.

“Someday soon,
We’ll touch the moon.
Ride the stars to the sun.
Someday soon,
We will commune.
And then we shall be one.”

This is weird pseudo-hippy crap that sounds like something you’d cringe at if you heard someone singing it with an acoustic on the campus quad. And it’s only an excerpt! I feel like I should apologize to you for forcing you to read it. I’m sorry.

The lesson learned here is clear: Don’t F with poetry. Bad poetry is more offensive than bad prose. My poetry is still pretty bad, but at least I’m reading and studying the craft before I write more. And I’m definitely not trying to rhyme.

Summing It All Up

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again here: I think it’s healthy to review your old work, no matter how nauseated it makes you feel. I may not be a great writer, but at least I’m better than I used to be. And sometimes, that reminder is all we need.

(P.S. I hope I made my grandparents proud. Waste not, want not!)

Kyle A. Massa is a comic fantasy author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include two books and several short stories. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking coffee.

Writing

I was going through some old files the other day when I came across one called “Pleasant Street.” It’s a roughly 2,000 word short story I wrote about six years ago. In fact, it was my first serious attempt at writing a short story.

Which is why I was so afraid to read it again. I think of it sort of like those photos your mom takes of you when you’re a kid and you still have that mushroom haircut. Most of us would rather forget it ever happened.

Let me start by saying this: “Pleasant Street” is worse than a mushroom haircut.

The Synopsis

We begin with our protagonist, Officer Greene. He’s a young, naive, and, as we’ll soon find out, frustratingly stupid, police officer. (Note: Officer Greene is a lame, lame protagonist. And heavy-handed symbolism is going to be a running theme with this one.)

In the first scene, a senior officer explains that Greene will be “walking the beat” along the titular Pleasant Street. Of course, “walk the beat” is a term I picked up from Law & Order. I kind of doubt anyone actually uses it. Anyway, this story is sort of like a B-horror movie. Best not to think too hard about it.

Greene goes door to door to introduce himself to the neighborhood. (Do police officers actually do this? Probably not.) One of the goofier lines from this section: “Pleasant Street was nothing but pleasant.”

Officer Greene meets a guy by the name of Frank Wolf (remember that heavy-handed symbolism I was talking about?), who invites him in for a meal. And Greene, being the hard-working fellow that he is, decides, What the hell? I’ll take an extended lunch break.

Mr. Wolf feeds Greene a stew described as “absolutely delicious,” though we don’t know what’s in it yet. Greene decides it’s time to get back to work, and on the way out, Mr. Wolf says, “…you’d better get going! In this day and age, if you don’t stay on top of your work, you’ll get eaten alive!”

Have you solved the mystery yet? Probably. And there are still about fifteen hundred words to go.

The following day, Greene runs into a homeless fellow by the name of Roger. Roger, whose hair sticks up in two points and makes him look like a “dirty little bunny rabbit,” tells Greene something to the effect of, hey, my friend went missing on this street. Dialogue, dialogue, and then Roger says, “Aright, man. Just watch yer back. There’s somethin’ weird cookin’ on this street.”

At this point, the story actually gains an unintentional element of humor. There are so many hints about what’s happening, yet Greene is too damn stupid to connect the dots.

For Greene’s third day of work, he decides to ask the residents of Pleasant Street if they know anything about this missing homeless dude. He goes to Mr. Wolf first, who rather unexpectedly says, “Have I seen him? Well, sure I have, Officer.”

I’ll say this for myself: I wrote my characters with consistency. Greene is a dope throughout the whole story, so even at this point, he needs an explanation.

Mr. Wolf proudly explains that he’s two-hundred years old, and that he owes his long, prosperous life to his diet. When Greene asks what that diet consists of, Wolf answers cheerily, “Why, human flesh, of course!”

So then Greene pukes all over the floor, and while he’s doing that, Mr. Wolf offers him the classic bad guy choice.

Option A: Join us (or, in this case, eat hobos with us and live forever).
Or, Option B: We kill you.

Greene might be dumb, but at least he has morals. He chooses Option B, at which point Mr. Wolf smacks him upside the head and everything goes black.

In the final scene, Greene awakens in a pot of water. He hears a match light, and then smells something which reminds him of “the smell of burgers his father used to make in the summer.” And then the story ends. Yum.

I think I meant for the ending to be tragic and horrifying. However, most readers would be so frustrated with Greene by this point that they’d probably cook him themselves.

The Takeaways

I’ve gotten better at writing short stories since then. In fact, I just released a short story collection entitled Monsters at Dusk. (No, “Pleasant Street” did not make the cut.) I think Monsters has the best work I’ve done so far. Sure, I might look back at it with shame 10 years from now. But if I do, at least then I’ll know I’ve improved.

Read through some of your old work, just to remind yourself how far you’ve come. When you collect rejections and nothing seems to be working out, you might make the mistake of thinking that you’re not improving.

But you are! Do yourself a favor and read some of your old stuff once in a while. You’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come. And, at the very least, you’ll get some good laughs out of it.

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the short story collection Monsters at Dusk and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

Tag: bad writing

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