When Bad Sentences Happen to Good Writers

I have written some very bad sentences. I've overloaded them with adverbs to the point where they resembled rococo drawing rooms. I've used seventeen words when two would do. I once compared a character's uncircumcised penis to a sleeping bat.

While it is embarrassing to find these sentences in my own work, I love finding them in other people's books. It reminds me that I am not the only writer who has days when his brain goes on the fritz.

Every year I go to British Columbia and/or Alaska with my friend Lynn to go scuba diving on our friend Mike's boat. We're usually out there a week or so, and in between dives we read. We used to do things like look for orcas and bears and visit Haida villages, but after seven years we're kind of over them. Especially the Haida villages.* So we read.

Lynn reads much more quickly than I do and goes through maybe seven or eight books per trip. I get through two or three. The problem is that bringing more than a couple of books uses up valuable luggage space. What with the dive gear and assorted this and that there isn't much room to begin with. Also, books are heavy, and now that the airlines charge you twice the price of a ticket for bringing more than 8 pounds of stuff we're totally paranoid about that.

Because of this we rely on the ship's library. Guests leave the books they finish and take ones left by other passengers. It's a nice system, and every year we find ourselves with a new crop of books from which to choose. Except for Mercedes Lackey's The Black Gryphon, which has not moved from its shelf in the seven years we've been going on these trips. Every year I'm tempted to read it just because I feel sorry for it, but now ignoring it is something of a tradition.

Depending on the library for our reading material is of course something of a gamble. If the previous guests were of dubious taste you can end up with a lot of stuff you don't want to read. Or--as happened to us one year--if the departing guests are German you're left with books you can't read even if you wanted to. But usually there's something.

Because we are horrid people, Lynn and I like to share with one another the worst lines of the books we're reading. It's something of a competition to find the most awful one. On this last trip I found a doozy. In fact, when I came across it I knew without a doubt that I had found our winner for the entire trip.

Ready? Here it is.

"His praise was so effusive that, even reading it by herself, in her own kitchen, she was slightly embarrassed by the effusiveness of the praise."

Isn't it brilliant? We thought so. It's practically a structural palindrome of hideousness. Every time I read it we would shriek for two or three minutes. Then Lynn would ask me to read it again.

Okay, it's not bad in an "It was a dark and stormy night," Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest way. It's almost worse, because it's such a nothing little sentence. Ordinarily you wouldn't even notice it, skimming past to get to the murder, or the sex scene, or the part where the kraken swallows the ship whole. But because it shouldn't stand out, it does. Kind of like the mousy girl who comes out of the restroom with the back of her skirt accidentally tucked into the waistband. You wouldn't normally look at her twice, but now you can't stop staring at her pink-and-purple-polka dotted underpants.

So who wrote this gem? It comes from the pen of Dean Koontz and is found in his novel The Eyes of Darkness. Written in 1981, the book was originally published under the name Leigh Nichols, and according to Koontz this was an early stab at writing a cross-genre novel. I know what it's like to switch between genres. It's difficult to change your approach and get the new voice right. Also, Koontz writes eleventy-six books a year and is bound to have a clunker now and again. So in some ways I'm tempted to cut him some slack.

Here's the thing, though. According to various Koontz bibliographies, The Eyes of Darkness is his 38^th published book (including books done under other pseudonyms). That's a lot of books to have written, so many that you might be tempted to think he wouldn't be writing sentences like that.

But he did. Because that's what writers do. We write bad sentences. Not always, of course, but from time to time. Readers just don't usually see them. Often we find them and get rid of them before anyone else sees the manuscript, and if we don't then usually an editor or copyeditor finds them and tells us how awful they are.

But not always. Sometimes things get through. That's just how it is. And inevitably some smart ass reader will send you or your editor a note letting you know that this horrible sentence made it past all of you. Sometimes they will helpfully offer to read future manuscripts for a small fee to prevent this kind of thing from happening to you again. Every so often they just tell you they hate your book and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking you can write.

And sometimes they're right and their comments are helpful. Several times I've used the wrong character's name in a sentence. Occasionally I've made factual errors. (Did you know there are no laundromats in Provincetown? I didn't.) In one novel I confused the nicknames for the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) with that of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). And people let me know so that I could fix the errors in the paperback editions of the books. Which I mostly did.

It's interesting to note that the version of The Eyes of Twilight that I read is the REVISED edition, published in 2008. That means, I assume, that Koontz looked over the original and did some tinkering. I wonder if he saw this sentence and decided to leave it alone because it amused him or if he saw it, was blinded by its awfulness, and like a victim of some terrible event (the Blitz, maybe, or someone who stumbles upon Glenn Beck's show by accident) developed amnesia to protect him from the memory of it.

By all accounts Dean Koontz is one of the nicest human beings on the planet. He loves his dog. His readers adore him. He still answers fan mail. I like a guy like that. And I like him even more because he wrote such a terrible sentence. If we were friends I would call him up, read him that sentence, and say, "Ha ha! That's crap, Dean!" And he would open one of my books, read something, and say, "It's not as crappy as that, Mike!" Then we'd complain about how Stephen King never invites either of us to his poker games.

By the way, if you want to read a very, very funny account of the experience Koontz had with turning this and several other novels into made-for-television movies, check out this entry on his website. It's hysterical.

*Handy Travel Hint: If you ever find yourself touring a Haida village, do not ask them where the Haida bed is. They don't think this is funny.

Creepy Clown Monday 1: The Clown Murders (1976)

Welcome to the first installment of Creepy Clown Monday, my look at the world of creepy clown films. Each week I'll be featuring a film (and sometimes a television show) that prominently features a clown as an object of horror. For some of you that means any clown, but I'm basically interested in films where the clown is meant to make you scream. You may be surprised to learn that this sub-genre of film is quite large. At the moment I have enough films to take me through an entire year, and I discover more every week. So we have lots to talk about.

We begin Creepy Clown Mondays with what is arguably the first creepy clown film of the modern age, 1976's The Clown Murders.

This is the original one sheet for The Clown Murders. Not exactly scary, is it? In fact, one might even say they're going for a kind of seriousness one would expect from a Deep and Meaningful Play like, I don't know, The Crucible, or something by an alcoholic Russian.

It's the graphics. They imply something that might be performed by well-trained actors in a theatre and not by semi-competent actors in a theater. Looking at this poster you might imagine yourself at a very swank cocktail party, talking to a dashing man who has just shared with you the details of his recent trip to Paris, during which he attended a performance of Manon Lescaut at the Opéra National and had lunch with Jeanne Moreau. Taking a sip of your martini, you nod and reply, "Have you seen The Clown Murders? I found it a provoking commentary on the tragic nature of obsession."

Oddly enough, you wouldn't be entirely off base. I think the makers of the film really did want to do something serious. Well, kind of serious. Here's the basic plot: A nice enough fellow (Charlie) comes home after being gone for a while to discover that his ex-girlfriend (Alison, that's her on the left there) has married another friend (Philip), a businessman who is planning on turning the farm on which Alison grew up into high-rise condos. For reasons that have everything to do with the plot, the deal is to be signed at midnight on Halloween.

To celebrate the closing of the deal, Philip is throwing a Halloween party at his country club. He orders his meek assistant, Ollie (played by funnyman John Candy in one of his first film roles), to order costumes for everyone attending. Charlie's buddies Rosie and Peter convince Charlie that they should scotch Philip's plan by kidnapping Alison from the party and hiding her so that she can't sign the paperwork to complete the sale of her family's property. I'm not entirely sure why, as I fell asleep for about 10 minutes at this point. But it's supposed to be a practical joke.

Anyway, for more reasons having everything to do with the plot, Rosie and Peter convince Ollie (who just wants to be one of the guys) to change the costume order to nothing but clown costumes. Now all the partygoers will look exactly alike. Ha ha! It's a whole herd of clowns! Scary, right?

Not so much. Well, if you find clowns in general creepy then seeing 80 of them in one place drinking cheap white wine might freak you out. But it isn't exactly frightening. However, when Charlie and his pals surround the golf cart on which Alison and Philip are riding (I forget why they're on a golf cart, but it doesn't matter) and force them to get out, there's a moment when you think, "Yeah, getting carjacked by clowns would probably make me soil my pants."

And here is where things go terribly wrong for everyone. This is supposed to be a harmless prank, right? Only during the kidnapping Philip gets knocked out cold and you start to sense that some people have anger issues that are going to be a problem later on. Rosie, in particular, seems a little unhinged, which if you ask me might have something to do with the fact that he's called Rosie and is a full grown man. But more on that in a bit.

Having knocked Philip out, the four clowns (Charlie, Rosie, Peter, and Ollie) take Alison to an old farmhouse and deposit her in an upstairs bedroom. They leave Ollie to look after her. Then a bunch of talking happens and everyone gets mad at each other. You find out that Charlie is sad that he lost Allison, Peter is kind of a putz, and Rosie has some serious problems with women.

For reasons I again can't remember (probably because the script told him to) Charlie goes out to look in the old barn. Finally--FINALLY--a creepy clown shows up. Here he is. Not a great picture, right? Well that's pretty much all you see of him in the film, so enjoy it while you can.

Realizing that this clown is not one of his friends, Charlie begins to worry. He worries even more when the clown chases him and he ends up trapped inside a chicken pen surrounded by an electrified fence. Yes, you read that correctly. And now back in the house a bunch of stuff happens that is supposed to be dramatic. Basically, Rosie is being an even bigger jackhole than he's already been, which is saying something. He's making fun of everyone--particularly Ollie, who eats a lot. I mean a LOT. He's a total fatty boombalatty.

One of the things Rosie decides is that he wants to have sex with Alison. But not in a good way. He kind of wants to make her have sex with him, if you get my drift. But Ollie protects her by baring the door and so Alison decides to have sex with him instead. No, I don't know why. But she does. And they show it. For far too long. Which is worse than any creepy clown in existence.

Now it's time to wrap the film up. Alison goes to take a shower, which I totally can't blame her for. Rosie drags Ollie (in his underwear) outside and beats him up. Ollie cries and acts like a giant sis and you don't feel one bit sorry for him. Meanwhile, Charlie is still in the chicken coop and is screaming at Ollie to get up and help him, which he doesn't because Rosie has hogtied him and, as I mentioned, he's a blubbering mess, apparently over having just lost his vrginity.

Rosie goes back inside, where he finds Alison standing wrapped in a towel. She drops it and tells him to come make love to her. Instead, he runs away. No, I don't know why either. I think they're implying that Rosie is gay and is going pyscho on everyone because he can't handle it, but that's kind of homophobic of them and let's hope it's not the case. Whatever the reason, he runs out of the house.

Honestly, I don't even remember who dies. I think the clown shotguns Peter, then Ollie shoots Rosie more or less accidentally (but not really, because he totally hates Rosie for teasing him so much). Alison stabs the clown in the hand. Charlie gets out of the chicken coop. The police show up and dawn comes. Everyone is sad because they realize they're unhappy. Or something like that.

Oh, the creepy clown. I almost forgot. Early on in the movie, when Charlie returns to the farm (where he used to live with Alison) to pick up some stuff he left there, we learn that the farm is being looked after by a caretaker with a Scottish accent and his semi-special son who likes to decapitate chickens. And guess what--they don't want the farm sold! So there you go. What? No, not the chicken-killing son. The father, although I suspect the son helped. (We know this because his hand is bandaged where Alison stabbed him.) Who saw that coming, eh? The film ends with the two of them walking through a field, apparently going to IHOP to have a celebratory breakfast, although it's unclear what they've accomplished.

As I said earlier, I think the filmmakers were going for Something Big. You know, the clown as the exposer of human foibles and so on. And good for them. But, well, I don't know. It was all kind of meh. Also blurry, as the DVD quality is crap even for a movie shot in 1976. Still, as one of the first movies to use the whole creepy clown trope, it's worth watching.

By the way, here are the covers of the VHS releases of the film and the 2007 DVD release. Notice anything different about them?


I thought you might.

I can give the artwork on the first VHS a pass, but the second one and the DVD are problematic. There's no graveyard in the film, no clown doll, and definitely no clown with a machete. So boo on you, Image Entertainment, for making us expect something a little more shriek-inducing than what we get. And boo on you for making us think John Candy is the star. Sure, he's got a pretty big role, but what about poor Stephen Young (Charlie), who was in Soylent Green and had parts in TV shows including CHiPs, The Bionic Woman, Hawaii Five-O, Magnum P.I., and Hart to Hart? Or Lawrence Dane (Philip), who appeared in a ton of stuff including Scanners, Little Gloria . . . Happy at Last, Amy Fisher: My Story, and Queer as Folk? Don't John Bayliss (Peter) and Gary Reineke (Rosie) deserve top billing too? After all, they were in episodes of Goosebumps and The Adventures of Sinbad respectively.

But I suppose you do what you have to do to move units.

Favorite Line: "There's more to life than just building apartment buildings."

Rating (out of 5)

Whatever

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