It’s Just Not Good Writing

By Derek Gaffney
Contributing Writer

I would like to talk about Michael Black. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of him.

First off, exactly what is the point of his article? What is he trying to tell us? That we’re stupid if we like football? That the hoopla and coverage of a sporting event is ridiculous and a waste of time? Or
that NDSU spends too much money on crap that they don’t need? (That’s what the last column of his story was about, right?)

Second, just what is your publication doing by sending him somewhere you know he’s going to hate? He literally says “I am reading a book, thankfully, while this is going on so I am not really sure what was actually said…” I don’t know if you paid him for this article and I don’t know if you pulled any strings to get him a table at the Hub but if you did anything at all except accept his submission to your paper I would hope you’d expect a writer you spent time/money on to actually pay attention to what’s going on around him.

I have a feeling you’d have Hunter S. Thompson cover the Westminster’s Dog Show if you could. Interesting story? Maybe. Anything about the actual show? No.

He seems to be the most negative person I’ve ever read in my life. Not to mention egotistical (“Dave and Robbie, two other personalities and close personal friends of mine…”). Yeah, you know a couple of
morning-show DJs from Fargo. Congrats dude. His Holier-than-thou attitude seeps from the pages like pus from an infected wound. Neither are attractive.

Also, as entertaining as he can be as an asshole, he’s not a good writer. Good writers don’t need to capitalize words to emphasize them. I’d quote them all but I think my fingers would get tired. Good
writers don’t comment on their writing mid-article “(that’s a lot of hyphens-in-one-sentence)”. I can practically hear him saying “Ayuk yuk” in his head as he wrote it.

And what’s his deal with capitalizing words that have absolutely no right to be capitalized? “The Faithful… Wall to Wall… Gladiators, Emperors, Boosters, Ticket Takers, Parking Lot Attendants… Weather
Girl. Easy on the Eyes… Gone National… Interested… Fallen Warriors… The President… The Coach… Daddy… Bison Went…”. Yikes, that’s a lot of proper nouns there, but I did leave my favorite for last.

First he writes “undergrad Mike,” next he writes “Mature Adult Mike.” What’s going on here? Where’s the consistency? Either way, just who the hell does he think he is? James Frey? (That is in no way a
compliment, Frey’s “Million Little Pieces” might possibly be the worst narrative I’ve ever read, even if it’s real [which is isn’t]) There’s absolutely no reason to capitalize those words!

The whole thing with “I don’t know how to spell this word” bullshit has got to stop. First it was fezzes and now it’s vulva, uvula, Volvo, vuvuzela. We live in the world of Google and there’s absolutely no way being ignorant of how to spell a word is funny or admirable in any way.

There’s one last thing I want to say. A third of the way through the article a mysterious Lindsay pops up and knows by now he’s “just drinking water.” Where did this Lindsay come from? I’m actually going to give the benefit of the doubt to Mike here and say I think an editor cut an earlier paragraph or two about Lindsay and failed to see that it made her actual introduction to the story ridiculously abrupt and awkward.

However, maybe no editors looked at the piece and Mike is just a crappy writer (but a decent story-teller, I’ll give him that). Actually, that might explain a lot.

I’m not trying to tear the High Plains Reader down or anything. I love reading it. It’s just that Mike’s story pissed me off. Not in a “I disagree with you and you’re an idiot” type of way, but in a “This is an extremely terrible article” type of way. You guys are better than that crap.

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