The best of the worst.

[SgtSteve]

No one has asked this question in a while. What is the best bad story here in your opinion. It can be one ment to be bad (like the one I did a while back) or one someone was trying to actually write. Also what is the thing in a story that drives you crazy. Me it is someone trying to hid their lack of knowlegde by being very technical. And I will admit that I used to do it back when I was a kid and started writing. That is probably why I hate it now.

[rightwing401]

This is a joke right? Of course the worst kind of story here is the invincible teen loser who single-handedly slaughters hundreds of the living dead and saves the blonde-bombshell cheerleader (who has never so much as looked in his direction, but suddenly sees him for the silent macho man he is) and lives happily ever after. And no I'm not joking. I can recall reading at least three stories in the fiction section that were exactly like this. I know I read a fourth one, because I made it about a page into the story, realized what it was, and quite reading while I was ahead.

[SgtSteve]

This is a joke right? Of course the worst kind of story here is the invincible teen loser who single-handedly slaughters hundreds of the living dead and saves the blonde-bombshell cheerleader (who has never so much as looked in his direction, but suddenly sees him for the silent macho man he is) and lives happily ever after. That was my story. of course I did it that way on purpose

[wyvern1096]

"**** of the Dead" was pretty bad, but sorta compelling. The story was bad yet I can't get it out of my head. Edit: The forum editor got me on the title. Let us call it "Crap of the Dead"...It is the real title, honest.

[krakenslayer]

There's a really old one in the fiction section called simply "Night of the Living Dead" - the plot is basically Night of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary Edition with a different ending. Sounds bad enough, but the WRITING... I'd hesitate to say the lady that wrote it was a "bad" writer, so much as someone who just didn't even try. It reads like a forum post she wrote in about an hour (and it is pretty long). I mean, sentences change tense halfway through, there is a complete disregard for spelling and grammar that makes some passages impossible to understand, and the descriptions are beyond weak - they're laughable. The made-up dialogue is the most inane you've ever read, and even the lines lifted from the film are ridiculously mis-quoted, as if the unedited dialogue itself would have stood out too much as someone obviously put some thought into writing them. As I read over it again, part of me genuinely wonders if the author was actually trying to lampoon the 30th Anniversary Edition by doing to it what it did to Romero's original vision, in which case it's one of the smartest pieces of writing on the site... but I doubt that. He's a little snippet for your enjoyment: Ben looked at what Barbara was looking at. There lied Helen. It appeared that she had been eaten several times in the face, chest, legs, arms and stomach. Wonderful.

[capncnut]

Ben looked at what Barbara was looking at. There lied Helen. It appeared that she had been eaten several times in the face, chest, legs, arms and stomach. It uppears that the sentunce in kwestion slipped parst wivout scrootiny.

[Slain]

Ben looked at what Barbara was looking at. There lied Helen. It appeared that she had been eaten several times in the face, chest, legs, arms and stomach. I shit you not. According to the grammar checker in my copy of Microsoft Works Word Processor the only thing wrong with the above sentence is that it's in the "passive voice" and to consider revision

[rgc2005]

I hate the ones that start or center in a high school with high school aged characters. Regardless of the writing quality I get this feeling that the author has some sort of issue about that time in his or her life. Going to a school serves absolutely no purpose in a survival situation.

[darth los]

As I read over it again, part of me genuinely wonders if the author was actually trying to lampoon the 30th Anniversary Edition by doing to it what it did to Romero's original vision, in which case it's one of the smartest pieces of writing on the site... but I doubt that. Well, just because it wasn't on purpose doesn't mean you still can't consider it that. I think we give our "genius' " way too much credit. Some of the greatest things/inventions in history happened by accident, yes a fuck up. Perhaps this is along those lines.

[krakenslayer]

Well, just because it wasn't on purpose doesn't mean you still can't consider it that. I think we give our "genius' " way too much credit. Some of the greatest things/inventions in history happened by accident, yes a fuck up. Perhaps this is along those lines. Good point, man. I guess if you think about the cult following of movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space, or the rabid fan following of literary non-talents like William MacGonagle, sometime badness can transcend straightforward judgment. Unlike the aforementioned works, however, which are at least fun, the above story is just impossible to read all the way through because it's so dull and written entirely in the "passive voice" (as mentioned in Slain's post). No insult intended to the author, by the way, if she reads this. I'm not attacking her abilities, just her astonishing lack of effort - why does one invest time (even if it's only an hour or two) in something if one can't be bothered to try to make it an interesting read or at least run the damn thing through a spell check? Also, I'm not singling her out deliberately, there are a lot of stories on there that are just as bad as this one, but her's is just the one that sticks in my memory the most (probably because it's a turd based on a turd). I hate the ones that start or center in a high school with high school aged characters. Regardless of the writing quality I get this feeling that the author has some sort of issue about that time in his or her life. Going to a school serves absolutely no purpose in a survival situation. I know what you're talking about - those stories are always over-angsty and usually turn out to be little more than Buffy rip-offs. I once had an idea for a story set in a school, but I dropped it for that very reason. Plus, the plot was a little too close to Columbine... and you have to be careful about what you write these days with regard to schools and guns, otherwise you get the cops bursting through your door, seizing your PC, and getting your name in the paper (e.g. "local man found to have written violent story involving a school and some guns, unnamed source thinks he was planning to do a Thomas Hamilton, Iron Maiden and Marilyn Manson CDs found in his record collection suggest he may be a Satanist, large collection of horror films seized from his address, videogames made him do it...etc...etc...")

[wayzim]

No one has asked this question in a while. What is the best bad story here in your opinion. It can be one ment to be bad (like the one I did a while back) or one someone was trying to actually write. Also what is the thing in a story that drives you crazy. Me it is someone trying to hid their lack of knowlegde by being very technical. And I will admit that I used to do it back when I was a kid and started writing. That is probably why I hate it now. At some of the Science Fiction Cons I'd go to (I was a member of Philly Fendom for many years )some of the editors would host a midnight panel, Tales From The Slush Pile. Fun reading from the worst submissions they'd ever received. Eventually this got largely phased out for fear of offending someone. Still, there was always Eye of Argon readings, where participants took turns reading the worst ever written Barbarian story. The trick was to read it straight through without cracking up. I've been called out on some stories a few times myself, not here so much but on other sites. You gotta have a sense of humor about your own stuff to survive in this business. Wayne Z "You're writing Crap! If you stop writing Crap you'll sell stories. " Paraphrase of a conversation between Harlen Ellison and J Michael Strazynski.