Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
If you haven't delved into the marvelous world of self-publishing, you have NO IDEA what "bad writing" really means. None. As much as mainstream publishers allow books to get sloppy or go to print without a much-needed final proof pass... it all pales in comparison to some of the dreck people release onto the web with the assumption that, since the idea looked good inside their head, they've successfully conveyed that idea to the reader.
...
I'm not giving examples because I hope those authors get an education at some point and become deeply ashamed that they ever thought they could make money from *that* collection of nearly-random words with punctuation assigned as if by blender-splatter.
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WORD!
I'll give an example: Kindle freebie:
http://www.amazon.com/Unsuspecting-M...dp/0984312722/
Oh god, it was terrible. For people coming up with stuff like GRR Martin's Feast for Crows ... if you didn't like it, you can argue that it was maybe the hugest disappointment. Or those terrible Twilight books others pointed out - I'm sure they are literary dreck (how I feel about Dan Brown novels). But the worst books ever? Come on.
There's a lot of terrible writing out there and you have to have read something that isn't that at least arguably well-written (GRR Martin) or at least tolerably written dreck (Brown, Twilight). Stuff that is terrible - plot, writing, concept and all.
Seriously, grab and read the first few chapters of the Unsuspecting Mage I linked to above. It's soooo terrible. It makes [insert random terrible TSR D&D novel here] look like a literary masterpiece.
Short of self-pub that's probably where I would come up with my worst - I know I read a few terrible TSR-published fantasy novels back in the day that were pretty bad - but nothing matches bad self-pub.