Overuse of commas. Repetition of the same word too many times on a page. Overuse of prepositions. Stringing too many prepositional phrases together in series. Not enough variety in sentence structure. Overly long sentences, like the kind that go on and on until you start to think maybe I should just adopt this as my new style, like I'm going to impress anyone or break my old record with an innovative use of grammar, a variety of phrasings building on each other and not, definitely not, just a long unimaginative string of prepositional phrases in, of, and/or for,,,,,,,,,, , did I mention overuse of commas? Overuse of conjunctions. Disorganized paragraph ordering. Abrupt transitions between sentences. Uneven pacing. Weakness of theme and story arc. Over-fondness of flowery poetic imagery. Tendency to sound similar to whatever pretentious post-modern literature I'm reading on the subway this week. Overuse of irony. Desire to counterpunch grammatically innovative long paragraphs or even multi-paragraph arcs with a short single-sentence, narrative-breaking think-stopper.
Like this.
Lack of practice. Mismatched verb tenses. Saying tenses when I mean noun-verb agreement. Rookie mistakes. Spending more time correcting than writing. Starting sentences with conjunctions. To sometimes, when necessary, split infinitives. Easily influenced. Weakness of voice. Undefined individuality. Indecisiveness. Dearth of ideas about style. Timid exploration of style. Stylistic dead ends. Disconnected ideas and amorphous feelings vis a vis everything and how and why it all fits together. Not labeling by subject. Conflating subject categorization. Lack of practice. Lack of writing schedule. Easily distracted. Noisy internal dialogue. Lack of practice.
Self-critical. Not self-critical enough. Needs improvement. Unsure. Unfocused. Too much television. Addicted. Lazy. Manic. Depressed. Past regrets. Present anxiety. Future worries. Fill your toolbox with these helpful tips to improve your writing style.
"The world is a hellish place and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering." -Tom Waits
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