4 ms·

What exactly is it about Steve's writing that is bad? Bad writers almost never have a following and certainly never have the following that Steve has acquired.

What exactly is it about Steve's writing that is bad? Bad writers almost never have a following and certainly never have the following that Steve has acquired. I would argue the contrary, that Steve's writing is quite good in that it evokes an emotion in the reader almost without exception. The emotion may be positive or negative but the fact that the emotion exists is evidence that his writing is not bad. Maybe you disagree with it or maybe you find it objectionably long but those things are different from saying he is a bad writer. I think Steve's critics are typically angry about something he has written about one of their hobby horses but I strongly doubt too many of them are imploring him to write better.

deleted 16y ago
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pvg 16y ago
Bad writers almost never have a following Let's see, the guy who wrote the Da Vinci Code, the lady who writes the Twilight books, Ayn Rand, oh we could go on. Now, if you're willing to redefine the meaning of 'good' to mean 'creates a response' then a lot of bad things can pass for good. But it's the sort of silliness that might evince a response that is not, you know, good.
- wingo 16y ago
  That could be a bad sign -- I pasted in my lasted blog to the http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1514016 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1514016 from a few days ago, and got Dan Brown. Surely a bug! Then the next two also came up Dan Brown. Doh!
- crpatino 16y ago
  >> ...the guy who wrote the Da Vinci Code, the lady who writes the Twilight books, Ayn Rand, oh we could go on. Shall we call those the Good-Enough-Writers (TM)? Seriously, truly awful anything do not ever see the daylight. Not even the children of emperors make it to public life if they not manage to make it to average (unless as posers or puppets). The Da Vinci Code is cheesy, but otherwise well written. Dan Brown is not going to make it to the classics, but is not an idiot either. Same can be said about Steve Yegge. His writing is opinionated, controversial, and sometimes grammatically incorrect (which I read as a token of informality rather than sheer ignorance). But the guy has a bunch of fresh ideas! You cannot have any good idea if you don't push the limits and throw some crazy shit as byproduct.
  - pvg 16y ago
    The Da Vinci Code is cheesy, but otherwise well written The Da Vinci Code is so poorly written, it's spawned a minor cottage industry of amusing commentary about how poorly it is written. A good place to start is here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.h... [heh, I wonder what refined consumer of English literature and fan of Dan Brown was so upset by this so as to downvote it]
    - crpatino 16y ago
      Let's put things on perspective, shall we. Take 100 random people who has not read the book, but have seen the movie. Pay each of them to write a novelization of the movie. Take the best 5 "novelizations", and I bet the original will circle around them, with the eyes closed. Repeat the above experiment, but substitute random people with random English literature mayors. Maybe the average "novelizations" will have fewer grammar errors than the top 5 of the previous experiment... but over all, I still expect the original to be better written than the top 5 of the second experiment. The guy had a good idea, and executed it well enough to make a success out of it. Get over it!
      - pvg 16y ago
        I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get over. The simple statement was that bad writers have no following. This is untrue. Dan Brown, just to go with our example, is a terrible terrible writer, by just about every imaginable standard of good writing. Dan Brown is a bad writer with a following. Nobody will remember who Dan Brown was 50 or 100 years from now. Dan Brown is also a tremendously successful writer and you seem to have great difficulty believing, just like the original poster, that a bad writer can be tremendously successful. You also seem to believe that there is some inherent dichotomy between Dan Brown's success and his lack of writing skill. There isn't. That's my entire point. Dan Brown is a dreadful, highly successful author. There is nothing logically or morally wrong with that. There's no reason there should be. He's simply an excellent counterpoint to the strange notion that bad writers cannot be successful. P.S. Just for the sake of completeness, it's English majors, not mayors.
- lionhearted 16y ago
  Dude, unsuccessful writers think people want "good writing" - they don't. They want to be entertained, inspired, informed, distracted, improved, whatever - you don't need a mastery of language to do that. In fact, if you let your mastery of language get in the way of entertaining, inspiring, informing, and otherwise serving people's needs, then that's quite silly. > But it's the sort of silliness that might evince a response that is not, you know, good. Start by cutting out words most people don't know. I read between 3 and 10 books per week (closer to 10 lately) and I don't know what "evince" means. Start spending less time looking smart and more time serving people and you'll go much, much further in life. Ignore this advice if you're secretly a best-selling multi-millionaire author who has inspired a lot of people who don't normally read to pick up a book instead of watch TV. In which case, carry on using the big words to bash other best-selling multi-millionaire authors who are inspiring a lot of people to read who normally don't, and entertaining them for doing so.
  - pvg 16y ago
    Dude, unsuccessful writers think people want "good writing" - they don't Dude, what does that have to do with anything? The claim was bad writers have no following. Which is not true. That's all. I read between 3 and 10 books per week (closer to 10 lately) and I don't know what "evince" means Happy to do my little bit broadening someone's vocabulary. Ignore this advice Thanks, I will. Mostly because I don't think I or any of the people I was having a discussion with were asking for advice. But I'll come back and re-read this during my next advice shortage.
patio11 16y ago
Bad writers almost never have a following Much like software, television, food, movies, etc, product quality is not the sole determinant of market success. The author who sold more books than anyone else in the United States last year, for example, is a wretchedly poor writer. (Let's just say "Product/market fit covers many sins" and we'll leave it at that.)
- beza1e1 16y ago
  Whom are you talking about? James Patterson?
starkfist 16y ago
Evoking emotion is one of the easiest things to do as a writer. You do not have to be a good writer to evoke emotion.
Alex3917 16y ago
"Steve's writing is quite good in that it evokes an emotion in the reader almost without exception." The fact that it's somewhat formulaic is probably what annoys a lot of people. Personally I enjoy formulaic nonfiction, but almost every writer in the genre has a ton of haters, e.g. Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, Zed Shaw, etc.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

pvg 16y ago

Bad writers almost never have a following Let's see, the guy who wrote the Da Vinci Code, the lady who writes the Twilight books, Ayn Rand, oh we could go on. Now, if you're willing to redefine the meaning of 'good' to mean 'creates a response' then a lot of bad things can pass for good. But it's the sort of silliness that might evince a response that is not, you know, good.

wingo 16y ago
That could be a bad sign -- I pasted in my lasted blog to the http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1514016 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1514016 from a few days ago, and got Dan Brown. Surely a bug! Then the next two also came up Dan Brown. Doh!
crpatino 16y ago
>> ...the guy who wrote the Da Vinci Code, the lady who writes the Twilight books, Ayn Rand, oh we could go on. Shall we call those the Good-Enough-Writers (TM)? Seriously, truly awful anything do not ever see the daylight. Not even the children of emperors make it to public life if they not manage to make it to average (unless as posers or puppets). The Da Vinci Code is cheesy, but otherwise well written. Dan Brown is not going to make it to the classics, but is not an idiot either. Same can be said about Steve Yegge. His writing is opinionated, controversial, and sometimes grammatically incorrect (which I read as a token of informality rather than sheer ignorance). But the guy has a bunch of fresh ideas! You cannot have any good idea if you don't push the limits and throw some crazy shit as byproduct.
- pvg 16y ago
  The Da Vinci Code is cheesy, but otherwise well written The Da Vinci Code is so poorly written, it's spawned a minor cottage industry of amusing commentary about how poorly it is written. A good place to start is here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.h... [heh, I wonder what refined consumer of English literature and fan of Dan Brown was so upset by this so as to downvote it]
  - crpatino 16y ago
    Let's put things on perspective, shall we. Take 100 random people who has not read the book, but have seen the movie. Pay each of them to write a novelization of the movie. Take the best 5 "novelizations", and I bet the original will circle around them, with the eyes closed. Repeat the above experiment, but substitute random people with random English literature mayors. Maybe the average "novelizations" will have fewer grammar errors than the top 5 of the previous experiment... but over all, I still expect the original to be better written than the top 5 of the second experiment. The guy had a good idea, and executed it well enough to make a success out of it. Get over it!
    - pvg 16y ago
      I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get over. The simple statement was that bad writers have no following. This is untrue. Dan Brown, just to go with our example, is a terrible terrible writer, by just about every imaginable standard of good writing. Dan Brown is a bad writer with a following. Nobody will remember who Dan Brown was 50 or 100 years from now. Dan Brown is also a tremendously successful writer and you seem to have great difficulty believing, just like the original poster, that a bad writer can be tremendously successful. You also seem to believe that there is some inherent dichotomy between Dan Brown's success and his lack of writing skill. There isn't. That's my entire point. Dan Brown is a dreadful, highly successful author. There is nothing logically or morally wrong with that. There's no reason there should be. He's simply an excellent counterpoint to the strange notion that bad writers cannot be successful. P.S. Just for the sake of completeness, it's English majors, not mayors.
lionhearted 16y ago
Dude, unsuccessful writers think people want "good writing" - they don't. They want to be entertained, inspired, informed, distracted, improved, whatever - you don't need a mastery of language to do that. In fact, if you let your mastery of language get in the way of entertaining, inspiring, informing, and otherwise serving people's needs, then that's quite silly. > But it's the sort of silliness that might evince a response that is not, you know, good. Start by cutting out words most people don't know. I read between 3 and 10 books per week (closer to 10 lately) and I don't know what "evince" means. Start spending less time looking smart and more time serving people and you'll go much, much further in life. Ignore this advice if you're secretly a best-selling multi-millionaire author who has inspired a lot of people who don't normally read to pick up a book instead of watch TV. In which case, carry on using the big words to bash other best-selling multi-millionaire authors who are inspiring a lot of people to read who normally don't, and entertaining them for doing so.
- pvg 16y ago
  Dude, unsuccessful writers think people want "good writing" - they don't Dude, what does that have to do with anything? The claim was bad writers have no following. Which is not true. That's all. I read between 3 and 10 books per week (closer to 10 lately) and I don't know what "evince" means Happy to do my little bit broadening someone's vocabulary. Ignore this advice Thanks, I will. Mostly because I don't think I or any of the people I was having a discussion with were asking for advice. But I'll come back and re-read this during my next advice shortage.

patio11 16y ago

Bad writers almost never have a following Much like software, television, food, movies, etc, product quality is not the sole determinant of market success. The author who sold more books than anyone else in the United States last year, for example, is a wretchedly poor writer. (Let's just say "Product/market fit covers many sins" and we'll leave it at that.)

beza1e1 16y ago
Whom are you talking about? James Patterson?

starkfist 16y ago

Evoking emotion is one of the easiest things to do as a writer. You do not have to be a good writer to evoke emotion.

Alex3917 16y ago

"Steve's writing is quite good in that it evokes an emotion in the reader almost without exception." The fact that it's somewhat formulaic is probably what annoys a lot of people. Personally I enjoy formulaic nonfiction, but almost every writer in the genre has a ton of haters, e.g. Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, Zed Shaw, etc.