How To Be An Awfully Good Writer
by violinoutoftune
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WARNING: Taking this article seriously will result in you never, I repeat,
never being published in the Neopian Times.
NEOSCHOOL – Hello, new students! Welcome to the first ever How-To-Be-An-Awfully-Good-Blank
class! As you gape at me right now you probably see a crazy red Bruce who has
obviously lost his mind. But am I indeed, Prof. Knowitnot, a great writer and
an excellent teacher – so stop staring!
Well, now, on to the instruction! Today’s lesson is all about how to become
a terribly wonderful writer! Yes, I know what you’re thinking. You think it’s
easy, right? On the contrary, being an excellent writer takes a lot of hard
work, patience, and laziness. Now, pick up your pencils and get ready to take
notes! You’ll have to copy the examples on the board while I’m talking. Everybody
ready? Okay… on your mark… get set… and HERE WE GO!
Always use chat speak – Chat speak is definitely “in” now, so if you
want your writing to be “in”, you better use it. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself
suddenly “out” and incredibly sane. That would be most unfortunate.
Examples:
i lyke 2 rite
i luv storeees
Misspell things so that the words will be so far off and your readers will
have to use a dictionary to understand what you’re talking about
– It’s good practice for the readers. They may even learn some new words in
the process!
Examples:
jocatoe (Chokato)
burrowland (Borovan)
chompme (Chomby)
tieraineah (Tyrannia)
Use no punctuation and no capital letters – It’ll be more fun (and educational)
for the readers to have to guess where sentences begin and end.
Examples:
the loop waz kewl he waz blew he iz my frend weee r frends
Always keep your story short and to the point – With your marvelous
writing, readers are sure to get bored after the first hundred words!
Put everything in one paragraph – If you have more than one paragraph,
you have to use indentions, and everyone knows indentions are SO tacky!
Don’t use adjectives – They are simply not necessary! They make the
story longer, which means it will take you longer to write it, which means less
time laying on a beach chair on Mystery Island and soaking up the sun.
Don’t use any words that start with “X” – A LOT of words begin with
the letter “X”. If you don’t use any of those words, it will take you less time
to write your story and give you more time to lay on the beach and get a sunburn
while a Crabula is eating your foot. Now, doesn’t THAT sound like fun!
Always use overused topics – Readers absolutely love to read about things
that they know everything about already. They like to be reassured that, yes,
they do know every single thing there is to know about it.
Examples:
Sloth, Dung, Weewoos, the Neopian Pound, overly sarcastic articles…
If a word ends in “e” and you need to add “ed”, get rid of the “e” then
skip a space and write “ed” – it’s just one of those weird grammer rules
that everyone has to follow whether it makes sense or not.
Examples:
lov ed
liv ed
rid ed
Use the “&” sign instead of “and” – C’mon, it means the same thing,
so why not?
Example:
jocatoes & burrowland & done r gud 2gether
Never write untrue articles – It’s just a not a nice thing to do.
Don’t have any problems in your story – Happy fans are ones who read
happy stories. Yes, readers don’t enjoy sad stories, they’d prefer happily dull
ones instead.
Never edit your work – Really now! You might actually correct a mistake
or something! What a horribly horrible horror that would be!
Always end your story with some annoying ending – Everyone likes an annoying
ending. It’s a wonderful surprise to the happily dull beginning and the happily
dull middle.
Examples:
but it waz just a dreem
now zats the end ove my storeee zat not ever hapend waznt it lyke the most
anoyeing ending 2 a hapalily dull storeee
Always drink juice while you’re writing your story – You’ll want as
many creative juices flowing around in you as possible.
Have no setting – This will allow, or rather force, the readers to use
their imaginations, which is always a good thing.
Say the same thing over and over again in as many ways as you can –
this shows your readers that you are exceedingly smart and monotonously uncreative
at the same time!
Have only one character – Having too many characters just confuses the
readers, and they already have enough to be confused about.
Always end your story with a bold “the vareee end” – It has to be bold
so that the readers will be sure not to miss their sign that they can now start
reading your wonderful story again!
And last, and certainly least:
Avoid using sarcasm – Some readers (can you believe this?) will actually
take it seriously! And we don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea now, would
we?
Finally, after you actually put all this essential advice to work, you will
be able to produce a masterpiece. Here’s one very good example of a supurb story,
if I do say so myself:
well lyke thear waz thiz loop thear waz lyke thiz loop thiz loop waz lyke thear
& he liv ed in Tieraineah & Tieraineah waz wear he liv ed & he wood eeet jocatoes
thear & jocatoes he wood eeet thear & thear he wood eeet jocatoes & he waz vareee
hapalily dull & vareee hapalily dull waz he & dull he waz vareee hapalily &
b kaus he waz vareee hapalily dull every1 ells waz hapalily dull & every1 ells
waz hapalily dull b kaus he waz vareee hapalily dull & b kaus every1 ells waz
hapalily dull he waz vareee happily dull 2 & every1 liv ed vareee hapalily evarrr
aftarrr & vareee hapalily evarrr aftarrr every1 liv ed & now lyke zat iz the
end ove my storeee & lyke the end ove my storeee iz zat & i hoep u lyked it
& i hoep it waz anoyeing & vareee hapalily dull & u lyked it i hoep & it waz
anoyeing & vareee hapalily dull i hoep the vareee end
Now class, wasn’t that the best piece of writing you’ve ever read? Heh, I
think I hear all my fans screaming out my name!
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!
That’s not my name! … Oh, that’s the bell! Well then, on to your next class,
students…
Wow! Everyone left really fast. I guess they just don’t appreciate awfully
good writing…