Learn From Bad Writers

There are a lot of ways to improve our writing. We can take workshops. We can follow blogs. The list is endless. One of the most obvious ways is something I talk about here on the blog a lot. Read authors that have made it. Read those authors who have just signed with a publisher you want to work for. But, there is another way that might not seem so obvious, and it is something I have used a lot when teaching college writing.

Read the bad stuff.

That's right. Don't read the good stuff, read the bad stuff.

What I would do in those college classes is to show the examples from many of the textbooks. If, you have ever looked at those books, many have essays that are far from stellar. These are basic and boring essays, but the authors have used these because they are short and simple, or just highlight a single concept. In reality, these are bad essays.

My classes would then evaluate those essays and develop solutions for fixing the essay and make the writing an A paper. The students get two benefits here. The first is to see what bad looks like and then be able to see that in their own writing. The second is that when they found bad things, they were able to figure out solutions. This second part gave them a strong tool for their own writing. When they found themselves in that same situation, they knew how to work out of it.

One of the issues with reading only the good stuff, is that because it is good, you get sucked into the story and your brain just does not have the ability to study and analyze the writing. But, when it is bad, you are forced to slow down and determine what is killing you about the writing.

So how do you incorporate the bad into your writing. Very simple - If you hated it, then just don't do it!