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Everybody these days knows how to write a good story. This is because everywhere that everybody goes, there are people who will tell you the ten steps you can follow to become a genius. There are even brain gyms that you can go to in order to become one. So really, there's no need for me to pontificate on how to write a good story. You've probably written one yourself. Or maybe several. You've printed them all out and you've put a copyright line on every page so that nobody steals your story. Even if nobody ever reads it.
Writing a bad story, however, requires a special kind of talent. The ability to go through with something even though you know it's garbage. It is actually very like garbage because the stench of its wretchedness threatens to blow up all over you, but you have to tie up the ends and take it someplace else. In a bad story, you don't name the people. They usually just go by pronouns. She sat by the window, staring at the falling raindrops. Or He walked along the beach, counting the stars. In a bad story, people are usually doing things with feelings ten times over what you feel in real life. They are walking around with over-sized feelings. The sleeves of those feelings are falling off the shoulders of its people. So they all look a little funny. Odd.
In a bad story, nothing ever happens. The writer thinks this is clever because in real life, nothing ever happens. But this isn't true. In real life, a lot happens. You can get run over by a bus on your birthday. But the writer thinks a story like that would be too melodramatic. It would lack...what is that word? Verisimilitude. Ah. So instead, the writer will write about a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, doing nothing but thinking. Thinking profoundly, intensely, so seriously that every line, every word, is a badly made burger. Everything is spilling out of everywhere.
The people in the story are always unhappy. They normally don't eat breakfast. Or sit on the potty reading harmlessly. No, they are like disturbed wasps. They are like angry cats. They have no use for happiness because that would mean they are just ordinary. And are partial to onion chutney just like everybody else.
The people in the story often die. Of slap-worthy causes like boredom or disenchantment. They kill themselves poetically. The blood will spiral out of them like a song. Or they will die innocuously. Ironically. Dying ironically is fashionable in a bad story.
The writer of the bad story thinks the story is haunting. Very few people will get it. The story was torn out of the writer's rib cage. It came from the heart. It came so suddenly and so easily that it must have been inspiration. Not the other painful answer- it may have been imitation.
The bad story sits like curdled milk in the heart of the writer. Nobody wants it. The writer does not want to throw it out. Surely, it can still be made into something else? Something more. Something everyone wants. And so, the people in the bad story will go on waiting. They will not be allowed to die. The irony of this will escape the writer.
Then, many years later, the writer will come back to the bad story and laugh. The writer is now a doctor. Or maybe a professor of English. 'I can't believe I wrote this!' the writer will smile. And then, the bad story will be put away within the pages of a dog-eared book. Wishing to be forgotten and remembered all at once. The people in the story will now relax. They are finally at rest.
Everybody these days knows how to write a good story. This is because everywhere that everybody goes, there are people who will tell you the ten steps you can follow to become a genius. There are even brain gyms that you can go to in order to become one. So really, there's no need for me to pontificate on how to write a good story. You've probably written one yourself. Or maybe several. You've printed them all out and you've put a copyright line on every page so that nobody steals your story. Even if nobody ever reads it.
Writing a bad story, however, requires a special kind of talent. The ability to go through with something even though you know it's garbage. It is actually very like garbage because the stench of its wretchedness threatens to blow up all over you, but you have to tie up the ends and take it someplace else. In a bad story, you don't name the people. They usually just go by pronouns. She sat by the window, staring at the falling raindrops. Or He walked along the beach, counting the stars. In a bad story, people are usually doing things with feelings ten times over what you feel in real life. They are walking around with over-sized feelings. The sleeves of those feelings are falling off the shoulders of its people. So they all look a little funny. Odd.
In a bad story, nothing ever happens. The writer thinks this is clever because in real life, nothing ever happens. But this isn't true. In real life, a lot happens. You can get run over by a bus on your birthday. But the writer thinks a story like that would be too melodramatic. It would lack...what is that word? Verisimilitude. Ah. So instead, the writer will write about a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, doing nothing but thinking. Thinking profoundly, intensely, so seriously that every line, every word, is a badly made burger. Everything is spilling out of everywhere.
The people in the story are always unhappy. They normally don't eat breakfast. Or sit on the potty reading harmlessly. No, they are like disturbed wasps. They are like angry cats. They have no use for happiness because that would mean they are just ordinary. And are partial to onion chutney just like everybody else.
The people in the story often die. Of slap-worthy causes like boredom or disenchantment. They kill themselves poetically. The blood will spiral out of them like a song. Or they will die innocuously. Ironically. Dying ironically is fashionable in a bad story.
The writer of the bad story thinks the story is haunting. Very few people will get it. The story was torn out of the writer's rib cage. It came from the heart. It came so suddenly and so easily that it must have been inspiration. Not the other painful answer- it may have been imitation.
The bad story sits like curdled milk in the heart of the writer. Nobody wants it. The writer does not want to throw it out. Surely, it can still be made into something else? Something more. Something everyone wants. And so, the people in the bad story will go on waiting. They will not be allowed to die. The irony of this will escape the writer.
Then, many years later, the writer will come back to the bad story and laugh. The writer is now a doctor. Or maybe a professor of English. 'I can't believe I wrote this!' the writer will smile. And then, the bad story will be put away within the pages of a dog-eared book. Wishing to be forgotten and remembered all at once. The people in the story will now relax. They are finally at rest.
