05 December, 2020 04:32PM
When
we think of innovative ideas or imagine things etc., we tend to write them as
much as we can, making our writing style to be part of our innovation process.
From starting a startup to writing a book, press release, business strategies,
and whatnot, we convey meanings into what we are doing or what is happening. At
some point, it may suck, at least from our perspective. “Is it that bad?” It doesn’t
matter if we are writing for ourselves, something private but once it’s for the
public, everything changes.
For some reason, the bulk of writing expounds on the
concept of good writing style, yet there’s much to be learned from the bad
writing style. When one imagines a bad writing style accentuating the
elegance of humor, call it Amanda. No one does this better than the Irish
writer, poet, artist, and inventor, Amanda McKittrick Ros. She died in 1939,
was born in 1860 in Northern Ireland. That was decades ago, think about that
and yet we still talk about her The World's Worst Writer, unchallenged even
to this day. Many believed she had a bad writing style witnessing the most
despicably atrocious abuse of the English language in her three novels and
dozens of poems. Oh! Give her some slack!
Defects are Beautiful, You Know?
The
genius of Amanda’s bad writing style is its ability to hide defects in plain
writing. Many of her content is quite conflicting, and some with a sense of
humor. On further inspection, there’s always a twist. Amanda is perceived to
have a level of controversy in writing, a tendency to burden simple things with
pointless names. In her Helen Huddleson Novel, she named characters after
fruits, including Lord Raspberry (and his sister Cherry), Sir Peter Plum, Christopher
Currant, and the Earl of Grape. Her penchant for alliteration resists
restraint: The villainous Madame Pear, she wrote, "had a swell staff of
sweet-faced helpers swathed in stratagem, whose members and garments glowed
with the lust of the loose, sparkled with the tears of the tortured, shone with
the sunlight of bribery, dangled with the diamonds of distrust, slashed with
sapphires of scandals....” OK! We stop here.
Bad writing style is worth remembering . . .
Bad
writing styles are rarely as ironic as Amanda’s “Helen Huddleson” Novel, but it’s
worth remembering. Ultimately, Amanda reminds us how easily we succumb to blind
spots, how our choices that ought to be outrageous suddenly seem like a good
idea. Her work clarifies the ways we sacrifice simplicity for the sake of
trends and needless improvements. Her first book, Irene Iddesleigh, was
believed to be “one of the greatest unintentionally humorous novels of all time”
one believed by none other than Mark Twain, and we’re totally in!
Very well then . . . So bad, so good.
One
of the most fascinating things about Amanda's writing style is her fanbase.
Remind us, when did she die? And we are in 2020, right? From her death year to
the present, how many years have passed? Her fan base is moving from generation
to generation and that’s interesting! Do you know the library in Larne? It’s
where she lived and in fact, has a plaque honoring her. Belfast library is no
exception, they hold her first editions, manuscripts, and much of her piece.
People from all over the world visit just to see them. Call her the Tiny Tim of
their literary world so bad she’s good. What a creative writer! But there is
one thing with creative writers.
It only gets worse if you let em’
The
best writers are creative writers, and people like us are the most insecure
people on earth. We are likely to hate 90 percent of whatever we put out there
if not more. It may not be the same day we put it out, but someday, yes unless we
all are narcissists who love everything about ourselves. While we may openly
defend our piece as Amanda scoffed at critics such as humorist Barry Pain, we
are likely to let their criticisms get to us.
There's
a reason we feel that way. It’s likely because all we write comes within us. We
imagined it, plan it, design it, write it, and put it out there and once it's
out there, it’s on us. It's completely, absolutely on us.
It’s
scary! Sometimes to a point we think of quitting. Well, some good writers believing
they have a bad writing style actually quit and never look back. If you’re
reading this, it’s likely you have not quit writing, at least not yet. But at
some point, the thought of quitting passes through our mind and intensifies if
nobody reads our content, that crushes us, really CRUSHES us. If they do read them but then respond with
lots of criticisms, we get crushed.
The
barrage of bad writing style, what makes a good writer and many other factors
writers are pushed to adhere to, have assaulted our senses that we may have
lost touch with what a good writing style is all about. Unfortunately, there
are always going to be writers (and content) some folks completely hate. Articles
and the skills of the people who write them are definitely at the mercy of the
reader’s subjective opinion. The reasons writers write varies widely, so why
should there be "rules"? In the startup world, it is believed that
"No rule rules", so should it be in writing!
