I thought I’d celebrate the launch of Rantlister’s new Advice and Peer Editing section by creating the first of a new series of pieces on writing more better. I call this one, How to Make Your Writing Not Suck: Part 1
We’ve all been there, you’ve penned your greatest masterpiece, you walk away and admire it from a distance with great pride and inner joy; and then upon closer inspection you realize, it couldn’t suck any harder if it were a love song from Lance Bass to Tom Cruise and Jar Jar Binks. You shake your head in disgust and cry white hot tears of shear frustration, you begin to think of creative ways to off yourself as you start to accept that you’ll never be a real writer, your finger hovers over the delete key. WAIT DON”T DO IT! (Don’t delete your rant, I mean, if you want to off yourself, I won’t stop you.)
Rule number one: Don’t delete anything, edit it. Never start over from the beginning, you’ve just spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes and a fifth of whiskey working on a rant, that’s time and boos that you’ll never get back. Truth Fact: Real writers never start over or scrap any project, they always see it through to the end.
Ok, so let’s see what you’ve written
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
Seriously?! You wrote Death by Emily Dickinson? What the fuck? Ok, nevermind, we can work with this, let’s start breaking it down. First off, this looks a lot longer then it really is because you’ve broken the lines up too early. It looks like some whiny emo poetry. That shit might fly on LiveJournal, but not on rantlister.com. Just put it into paragraphs and see what it looks like.
Death by Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, and I had put away my labor, and my leisure too, for his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove at recess, in the ring; we passed the fields of gazing grain, we passed the setting sun. Or rather, he passed us; the dews grew quivering and chill, for only gossamer my gown, my tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground; the roof was scarcely visible, the cornice but a mound. since then ’tis centuries, and yet each feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses’ heads were toward eternity.
Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s start by fixing the title, a good title will help you focus the rest of your writing. The title “Death” is too short, you need something longer, edgy, modern, more eye catching, little bit ol’ school, like “Death Comes Ripping” but then you have to personalize it, something to draw in the interest of your reader, start by personalizing the title, make it effect them.
Then let’s get you a better ranting name. Emily Dickinson is far too long, You should shorten it, like “E. Dick.”, but then you should make it catchy, unique, something people will remember, like “eDick.” But then again, you need to inflict a little bit of your personality in your name, something that tells the reader why they should read something you wrote.
Death Comes Ripping Your Faceoff by eDickGTA
Great, it looks better already, now let’s work on the text, line by line.
Because so much of this written in passive voice, it will need to be edited. First off, you should never start a paragraph with “because,” it’s a weak introduction. Think about it, what if this paragraph started with “because?” You wouldn’t even read it. “Because” is a word of “passive voice,” and ranting is not for passive people, try using a swear word instead, it’s for aggressive people, we call this your “aggressive voice.” Let’s try rewriting this by removing all the passive words and replacing them with expletives.
Let’s see how it looks now:
Death Comes Ripping Your Faceoff by eDickGTA
Fuck I, could not stop for Death, he fucking stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, and I had put away my labor, and my leisure bitch, for his cock.
We passed the school, where children strove at recess, in the ring; we passed the fields of gazing grain, we passed the setting sun. Na fuck that, he passed us; the dews grew quivering and chill, for only gossamer my gown, my tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground; the roof was scarcely visible, the cornice but a mound. since then ’tis centuries, and yet each feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses’ heads were toward eternity.
Ok, that helped, but it’s not fixed yet. You’re talking far too much about feelings. Look, real men don’t have feelings; except hungry, horny, pissed off, and piss drunk. Someone may have told you that real men aren’t afraid of to let their sensitive side show, they were liars. Real men don’t have a sensitive side, anyone who does is a whiny goth kid who QQs while listening to The Cure. Rewrite this by removing all unacceptable feelings and writing as if you’re hungry, horny, pissed off, and piss drunk.
Now you have to make it badass. This guy Death, he sounds like a pussy to me. What we need to do is remove some of the sissyness from Death, and make him more pimptastic. How do you do that? By making him a fucking G, with a pimp cane and mad bitches.
You also have a lot of words here that just suck. There is no reason a straight man should ever use words like “tippet” “tulle” or “gossamer.” Replace those words with shit like “Weed” and “Coke” and “G-spot.” You also need to add some action to the piece, all you’re doing is driving around. This is boring shit, it’s like a road trip with your parents, make it like a road trip with Snoop Dogg.
Death Comes Ripping Your Faceoff by eDickGTA
Fuck, I was all piss drunk and horny. So I called up my homeboy Death. He fucking rolls up outside my house in a drop top, ’64 Impala, all midnight black. The G-ride held but just ourselves and six hot bitches. We slowly crept through the hood, fucker wasn’t in no hurry, we were hittin’ switches and smackin’ bitches.
We passed the school, where the thugs where holding it down, we passed the park where they were drinking Gin and Juice. We stopped and smoked some fine weed, did a couple lines of coke, and I nailed this one find big breasted slut, she moaned when I hit the G-spot.
We paused before a crib that seemed to be all run down and shit; Death lays on the horn, and yells “Hey cheese-siders, come out and play!” Then he pulls out an AK and Mac 10, and fucking starts busting caps all up in their bitch-fool-punk-hater-asses. He looked at me and said “Don’t get your shit twisted, it ain’t nothing but a G-thing.” When he dropped me off, my hot girlfriend with big titties had dinner ready and she told me that she respected me as a man, and that she was no longer ashamed that I’m thirty-seven and live at home with my mom, got no job, playing xbox live, towards eternity. So I smacked her with my pimp cane, and told her “Hate the game, not the player.”
See, you can make anything not suck.
