What is something that everyone "thinks" they're good at?

I'm a translator and every once in a while people approach me with crimes against words. I respect all kinds of texts and subjects, but some writing is just bad. It's not your "style", it's not so deep that no one understands you, you just listened to too much black metal and didn't check enough dictionaries. People can tell when your writing is hard to read because you want to establish a mood, and when it's impossible to read because you're bad at everything.

Do your characters have different names and hair instead of personalities? Does anybody have black swirls of despair pulsing behind their obsidian eyes, as the clock of disappointment strikes once, twice, thrice? Are all adjectives in your novel hyphenated? Are there strings of five adjectives in a row? Are there cats who like a good croissant and some wine (I get women, but how could you not have met a fucking cat in your entire life?) Do people smoke cool-sounding herbs and they do the opposite of what erowid says they should do? Do you sometimes check wikipedia and copy-paste the definition for something, i.e. "The navy of the Dutch Republic was the first navy to build the larger ocean-going frigates. The Dutch navy had three principal tasks in the struggle against Spain: to protect Dutch merchant ships at sea, to blockade the ports of Spanish-held Flanders to damage trade and halt enemy privateering, and to fight the Spanish fleet and prevent troop landings.", she thought seductively, putting a blood-crimson flower in her shiny hair. (I shit you not, somebody did this).

If not, congratulations, you are a fucking genius.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent