cimorene

In case you were writing something, maybe going for a dreamy or lyrical tone, and you were waffling - if you were asking yourself, "Yeah, self, I like that, but is it deep, or is it pretentious? Do I like it because it's poetic, or because of a little too much exposure to high school literary journals?" - this list may help you out. Think of it as a resource.

1. Creating new verbs by squishing together words that have nothing to do with each other and make no sense. Example: "Spreadmelt the peanut butter over the white bread." Minus extra points if the words are actually a contradiction in terms. Example: "Wakingupsleeping in slow, honey dribbles all the night."

2. Incomplete sentences. Example: "He showers and reaches for his toothbrush outside the hotwet enclosure feeling in the without and not checking to see if it's." Minus extra points if the incomplete thought is the end of a scene. Example: "She wishes she could, sometimes, but unfortunately - [scenebreak]"

3. Doing away with rules of punctuation for no good reason. Example: "Linderwall was a peaceful/prosperous place where the knights polished their armour every bluemoon, mainly for show, where the greatest event was when the occasional fairy godmother overcame her complacent ennui to become annoyed and cursed some unfortunate child and even then a princeprincess could usually be found to marry the unfortunate offspring, philosophers were highly respected and the number five was fashionable, but maybe, maybe in its simple prosperity and conservative pleasance in the harsh basketwoven high-lowing Cimorene, hated it."

4. Nonsense similes. Example: "Her hair hung over her forehead like the wiggly green tophat of a swollen butterfly larva anxious for the rain." Minus extra points for fused metaphors. Example: "Her eyes were fixed on the screen eagerly, winged, filled to bursting with the bittersweet savour of forgotten iced tea, the images seeping like bubbles bleeding desperately through the cracks in a frozen-thawed dishsoap:bottle of loneliness."

5. Unmotivated and inconsistent lack of capitalisation. Example: "John creases the takeout menu between nervous fingers and finally clenches hand on worn-plastic phone - the pizza place delivers, but not quickly. (spent hours waiting, endless hours of horror, nopizza, sad and hungry)"

6. Nonsense hyphenation. Example: "The dog slept on the smelly-plaid cushion and snored and occasionally drooled a bubble of dreamy drool onto the sad-grimy floor."