This has been requested by one of my blog readers, so here you have it. Let's indulge in this fabulous topic of how one would write a bad book. I mean, enough talking about writing good books, excellent books, perfect books. What exactly would you have to do to write something that would be completely and utterly horrible? I will employ my entire arsenal of knowledge to see if I can come up with a list of things to make your novel the worst possible book EVER.

Write a long prologue. Forget about jumping right into the story. How about boring your readers to tears with a long drawn-out prologue that will make them want to pull their teeth out? How about indulging in so much backstory that your poor readers don't remember where they started and where they are going? Or, by the end of reading the prologue, the readers have gotten so confused that they don't know what the book is about anymore? Perfect.

Indulge in extensive descriptions. Make sure you describe everything in minute detail, and I mean, EVERYTHING. The way people look, the way they are dressed, what kind of a bagel they are eating, what kind of cheese it has on it, how they smear it on top of the bagel, no, wait, you forgot to describe how they actually slice the bagel in half, what the knife looks like, what color the table cloth is, and what noises they made while taking their first bite. Don't forget to describe the weather, the intricate slant of sun rays on the main character's face, and how exactly she or he tilted her or his head while chewing.

Fill your sentences with adjectives and adverbs. You absolutely have to use as many of these babies as you can. Was the gun yellow or pink? Did the zombie monkey swing crazily or obnoxiously or contemplatively or all of the above? Was the butler's wife fat and voluptuous and large and heavy and stout and wide like a bookcase and did she move about the dungeon stealthily or gracefully or steadily or dreamily? You have to include an adjective next to every noun and an advert next to every verb. I mean it. It will make it extra hard for your reader to read, and it will make them want to throw your book into the bushes.

Make your dialogue fill entire pages. Who says you need to break up your dialogue with action? Forget that. Just fill page after page after page with people talking, and talking, and talking. That's what life is about, isn't it? That's what we do, we talk! Right. Make sure you stay as primitive in your dialogue as you can, repeat things often, keep it flat and empty, like how about making your characters talk about the weather all the time? Wouldn't that be nice? Oh, I forgot, keep it phony. Like, make your characters tell us what they will do next. And make them do long confessional speeches. That's a sure winner.

Tell, don't show. I mean, who needs this whole showing thing? It's for the movies. Tell. Tell things the way you would describe your past weekend to your mother on the phone. What you did, how you did it, why you did it, how long it lasted. Make sure to use big empty words describing your new girlfriend: she was gorgeous, she had smooth skin, she was blonde. Make it as non-concrete as you can. Better yet, employ empty cliches, as in, she was drop-dead gorgeous. You can layer it with wonderful words like literally. So, you would say, she was literally drop-dead gorgeous. You can't get worse than that. And, of course, use the word WAS as much as you can.

Forget about editing, it's ready the first time! Who needs editing? Writing is art, and art has to be spontaneous. Make sure you make absolutely no edits, just write it as it comes to you the first time and give it to your readers in its purest raw story form. Don't bother fixing anything. After all, editing takes forever, it's hard work, and you have more important things to do, like paint your nails or open up another can of beer.

There are more things you can do to write a bad book, like give your readers no sense of place, rely exclusively on cliches, ignore structure, don't fix grammatical mistakes, use fancy words for the sake of using fancy words, keep your writing dull, use passive verbs anywhere you can, make your characters ramble on forever on pointless topics. Wait, one more, bog down your book with constant flashbacks, info dumps, and backstory. There, I think this covers it. Enough? What do you want me to blog about next? Oh no, please don't ask for part two of this post, I'll drown in the bog of eternal misery!