The Bad Writer's Guides to Useless Things Volume One

By David Macpherson

So you want to be a successful bad writer. Well, who doesn't? We all want that sweet sweet hack writer money. And why shouldn't you have your piece of that cash pie?

 

To get that lucre, we have compiled three of our best Bad Writer's Guides. They will aid you in your quest to being rich and barely talented. This is the goal. This is the dream.

 

The first book is The Bad Writer's Book of Cliched Science Fiction Lines. All the bad lines you dreamed you came up with, they are yours for the picking.

 

The Bad Writer's Book of Bad Foreshadowing is next. We have hundred of examples of poor moments of foreshadowing. You need examples to steal (I mean to be inspired by) and we have a ton of them here.

 

Being a bad writer should be as easy as your ABCs, and that's what we have for the third book in this terribly helpful volume. The A to Z of Bad Writers. A is of course for alcohol. How can it not be. We are talking about bad writers here.

 

Read. Learn. Enjoy. Be the bad writer we know you can be.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Macpherson
• Release date: Sep 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393704140

Book preview

The Bad Writer’s Book of Cliched Science Fiction Lines

Clichés Are in a Galaxy All of Its Own

When writers decide they want to be the best bad science fiction writers they can be, they ask us what do they need to know. The answer is, know your clichés. You think the science fiction universe is made up of atoms and dark matter? Well that’s not true. The Bad Science Fiction Universe is made up of clichés and blatant sexual innuendo. The sexy stuff will be addressed in another volume. What we have here are the clichés. You can have a terrific bad science fiction story without the sex, but never without the clichés.

Being a successful bad writer means that you can wield your clichés like weapons. You have to build up your story with the familiar. Some might say that using nothing but clichés in your work will make it too familiar, but that only means you are on the right track.  Science fiction is built upon clichés.

Sometimes, a new bad writer will get into trouble by attempting to find a new idea or a novel figure of speech. This activity will bog them down and they will get nothing completed. Clichés are a wonderful way to complete the work. You know you will reach the finish line with tried and true clichés.

We here at the Institute of Bad Writing feel that you need to have all the clichés available. We have scoured the Bad Writing Archives and compiled a small sampling of clichés that you can use in your work. All of these are ready for you. We will never say that you stole our ideas, because who actually came up with this stuff?

When you are ready to start your bestselling science fiction masterpiece, we recommend that you go through this book and pick five or ten of these clichés at random. Utilize them like building blocks. Take these cliched lines and just fill in the rest between them. You will find that it takes very little effort. That’s what we are about here at the Institute for Bad Writing, making bad writing easy for all.

Notes on the List of Clichés

While perusing this short and snappy list of Science Fiction Clichés, you might notice that some of them are repeated. Of course, they are repeated. They are clichés. We would not be giving the correct list if there wasn’t a sense of Deja vu. The trick in using these clichés as your own is to change them just enough to avoid claims of theft.

Many of these cliched lines are dialogue. This is not a mistake. Dialogue is where the most overused lines appear. If anyone complains that no one would ever speak like this, you may respond, They do speak like that. But you never came across an alien invasion or a malfunction in a galaxy hopping colony ship. People in these situations will also talk in finely hewn clichés. That’s the great thing about science fiction, no one can blame you for not being realistic. This stuff takes place in the future, what’s realistic about that?

The Cliché Lines

1 There are many planets and solar systems and galaxies in the universe, but only one planet Earth. The most important planet of them all.

2 I come from an insignificant blue planet. I don’t even remember it’s name.

3 Well, thank goodness  that there is breathable air on this planet.

4 Good God, Jameson, your visor is cracked. You’re a goner for sure.

5 Water, there is water here. And it’s delicious.

6 It’s a good thing that you speak English on your planet.

7 And what was the evil planet that invaded? Just a small insignificant planet they called Earth.

8 We, the United Planets of Everywhere, have been watching your little globe, because we knew you were special.

9 Once you learned the secret of nuclear power, we had to destroy you.

10 People of Earth, bow down to your new ruler.

11 There is no one more powerful than Zoog!

12 There was these lights in the sky. Mighty peculiar.

13 If only they listened to the old man, then the world would not have become an uninhabitable cinder.

14 We come in peace.

15 What is this thing called kissing?

16 Why don’t you go to sleep Jimmy? Yes, sleep. When you wake up you will realize that we were right and you will feel no pain ever again. That lame leg? Go to sleep Jimmy, and it won’t bother you ever again. Yes. Sleep.

17 You humans are so ugly, ugly, ugly. But still, the Earth woman, Jane, she fascinates me.

18 Help, my brain has been put into this gorilla’s body. You must help me!

19 This human thing can talk.

20 No, we cannot make love. You would never survive the way a true being makes love.

21 Eat you? Don’t be ridiculous. We will not eat you. We will feed you to our pets.

22 The Universe is a large and unknowable place and we will never comprehend all the creatures that want to destroy us.

23 Those eyes! That thing has so many eyes.

24 Ah, Doc. There you go with your science again.

25 Look toward the stars.

26 Look at the water! What’s coming out of the water?

27 When I asked the Traveler what planet he came from he said, Nazareth. I never heard of that planet.

28 He’s from Mars, they are so much stronger than our typical Earth man.

29 Sure, it sounds like a woodpecker, but I ain’t never heard one so loud a-for.

30 The giant crabs are destroying the town.

31 The fields are overrun with humongous grasshoppers.

32 Those are no ordinary fifty foot ants. I believe all of those flying saucers have something to do with them.

33 Barbara! Snap out of it! We will never stop the aliens if you are screaming all the time!

34 Don’t touch that glowing stone! You don’t know where it’s from!

35 Stop that praying! God won’t help you now! Now we must listen to Science!

36 I think that awful beast is in love with Nurse Henderson.

37 I have never seen something that big before.

38 The only thing that will stop the monster is alcohol. We must drink all the vodka to live!

39 And suddenly, Billy was transported to another planet.

40 It was Earth all along.

41 It was only a dream.

42 Don’t go into the cellar.

43 I will call him Robot!

44 Only the most perfect specimen known to Man will be allowed to escape on the Rocket Ship.

45 That’s a Tyrannosaurus Rex! How can that be?

46 Philip, I will tell you something that you will think mad! The Earth is hollow. Hollow I say.

47 That brain in the jar, whose brain is it?

48 I do have a girlfriend, she’s from the planet Neptune. No, really. I have pictures to prove it.

49 Mind control can work on weak brained specimens, like yourself.

50 Inside the block of ice was the perfectly preserved body of a caveman, but I assure you that when we thaw it, there is no scientific rationale that will allow him to come back to life.

51 I am you, from the future.

52 I am you, from the past.

53 I am your grandfather, from another dimension.

54 I am your son who is also your father, crazy, right?

55 Let’s go use that time machine and kill HItler.

56 We already used the time machine and I am Hitler.

57 The world has been destroyed by the corporations.

58 The world has been destroyed by the commies.

59 The world has been destroyed by the Earth Firsters.

60 We did it. We blew it all up. We finally did it.

61 The butterfly. He stepped on the butterfly!

62 Of course the Servo-Man is powered by steam. What other power source could be so efficient?

63 What do you mean alternative timeline? This is the only time, a time when the Roman Empire has ruled the world for two thousand years. Hail Caesar.

64 The world has been destroyed by Greenhouse gas.

65 The world has been destroyed by time traveling Hitler.

66 The whole world was created by a petulant five-year-old named TImmy.

67 Don’t wish me away, I want to live in your world.

68 There is no Hitler, he was just a construct from the game.

69 What is this thing called VR?

70 What do you mean I am just a nerdy kid in a