Chronicle: what makes a text cheesy? – 02/18/2024 – The Worst of the Week

Betina writes to me asking what types of words, phrases and ideas “make a text bad (tacky)”.

It is important to renounce the words “potent” and “potency”. Go back to writing anything with them in 2035. If you’re white, you’ve done your share of using “ancestry” too.

Do you know when at the end of a film the protagonist takes the victory walk? When she, sovereign and conclusive, lifts her chin, looks at the horizon and is full of attitude? Everyone knows this is a cheesy, beat and cliché scene. The same occurs with the text that accompanies it.

Almost always the powerful thought of a powerful protagonist is about her having decided to be much more herself, it’s about the best version of herself, because without knowing where she was going, she went towards herself. All of this is painful. Any text that concludes that you encountered yourself, except for wonderful reports from users of lysergic drugs, shows that it was better if you had never left home.

Unless you are making fun of the way your late and annoying uncle Armando spoke, avoid narrating how leafy a tree was whose shadow reflected on the clear skin once cradled by the dim light of a simple lamp. There are also those who believe that putting an overwhelming meadow, a pleasant torso or an obliterated look in a text resolves an irreversible lack of talent.

The street. At night. The Scream. The silence. Also avoid writing in the rhythm of how your uncle Armando’s jets of urine came out, with great effort.

Have you experienced any journeys? Do you leave room for the unpredictable? Are you surprised by the unpredictability of life? Do you call time “this god time” or “this god time”? Cool, just don’t publish it.

I would also avoid “ledo deceit”, “beautiful”, “the knowledge of so many Brazils”, “fine line” and any use of the word vulnerability to conclude that it strengthened you as a powerful woman who found herself.

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