How Not to Write

There are many ways to write badly, most of them involving commas, deadlines, or the belief that one more adjective will finally make the sentence feel alive. Those are very ordinary problems and they can be fixed with editing, sleep, or somebody taking the thesaurus away.

The more interesting mistakes happen when the sentences themselves are competent but the argument quietly sabotages its own credibility. The writer has evidence. The writer may even be right. But somewhere between observation and conclusion, the prose starts doing too much. It claims motives it cannot know, makes certainty look stronger than evidence, turns frustration into framing, and gives skeptical readers an escape hatch large enough to drive a truck through.

This is how not to write.

Start with unnecessary certainty. Certainty feels powerful on the page because it removes friction. There is no maybe, no qualification, no possibility that another explanation exists. If the facts support “this happened repeatedly,” do not upgrade the sentence to “this always happens.” If the evidence supports “several people described the same pattern,” do not promote it to “everyone knows.” The stronger claim may sound tougher, but it also gives the reader one easy counterexample and suddenly the whole argument is wobbling.

Then assign motive. This is one of the fastest ways to turn an observable fact into a contest over mind-reading. Someone delayed a decision, so they must have been trying to control the room. Someone changed course, so they were clearly protecting their ego. Someone disagreed, so they were threatened. Maybe. But unless motive is documented, the writer has just swapped evidence for interpretation and presented the exchange as an upgrade. Describe what the person did. Describe what the behavior accomplished. Motive can remain a possibility without being smuggled in as fact.

Next, use weak framing. A strong piece can be wounded by a title or opening that tells the reader exactly how angry the writer is before telling them why. Rage may be justified. It may even be the reason the essay exists. But if the framing announces the verdict before the evidence arrives, skeptical readers begin investigating the writer instead of the subject. They ask whether the author is bitter, biased, obsessed, wounded, dramatic, or settling a score. Congratulations. The argument has created a second trial and volunteered to be the star witness.

Emotional overreach works the same way. Emotion belongs in writing. Anger can clarify what matters. Grief can reveal scale. Disgust can identify a line that has been crossed. The problem is not feeling too much. The problem is asking emotion to do evidentiary work it cannot do. “I was furious” is evidence about the writer’s experience. It is not proof that the other person acted maliciously. “This felt humiliating” matters. It is different from “they intended to humiliate me.” Good writing preserves that distinction because the distinction is where credibility lives.

Another reliable way to weaken an argument is to bury the evidence beneath the accusation. This usually happens when the writer has already decided the conclusion is obvious. The adjectives arrive first: toxic, dishonest, corrupt, selfish, cruel, incompetent. Somewhere three paragraphs later, the verbs finally show up. That order should make us suspicious. If the behavior is strong enough, lead with it. Show what happened. Let repetition accumulate. Let the reader experience the mechanism before receiving the label. Evidence is much harder to dismiss when it has not been forced to carry a billboard.

And then there is the great self-inflicted wound: giving the reader an escape route.

Every argument has a skeptical audience. Some readers will disagree no matter what. Fine. They are not the problem. The problem is making disagreement easier than engagement. If your entire claim depends on everyone behaving the same way, one exception defeats it. If your argument depends on knowing another person’s private motive, they can deny it. If your headline overstates the evidence, the reader can attack the headline and ignore the body. If your tone sounds like prosecution before the case is presented, they can dismiss the prose as grievance. You have handed them a simpler assignment than dealing with your actual point.

The goal is not to make writing bloodless. It is to make the criticism structurally difficult to escape.

That means saying exactly what the evidence can carry and no more. It means distinguishing action from motive, pattern from universality, impact from intent, and judgment from diagnosis. It means trusting the reader enough to let the verbs accumulate. It means recognizing that restraint can make an argument harsher because there is less decorative anger available to blame.

A useful rule is simple: remove every sentence your opponent would rather argue about than the evidence.

If the weakest sentence is also the loudest sentence, cut it. If a motive claim can be replaced with observable behavior, replace it. If the title makes a broader claim than the piece proves, bring the title back inside the fence. If the emotional truth matters, keep it attached to the person who actually experienced it. If the pattern is strong, stop trying to make it unanimous.

The best criticism does not need to tell the reader what kind of person someone is, it shows what keeps happening and asks the harder question.

Just explain the pattern, that is enough.