Blog / Worst Muse

"Go ahead. Make him a vampire. Make them ALL vampires"

No, seriously, go for it. It'll be a bestseller.

@WorstMuse is a Twitter parody account created by Jay Edidin. In it, the titular muse gives horrible writing advice disguised as useful tips for budding young writers.

Compare Terrible Writing Advice and How to Write Badly Well.

Compare and contrast How NOT to Write a Novel.

NOTE: While you'd be tempted to just quote the Twitter feed since most examples are just Discussed Tropes and, as such, are "self-explanatory", DO note that by doing so, you would only create Zero-Context Examples that could lead to this page being cut (again).

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The Worst Muse provides examples for the following tropes:

• Alternate History: The Muse once suggested making an Alternate History setting...with VAMPIRES!
  "What if the Confederates won... and also what if they were sexy vampires?"
• Blatant Lies: Lots, especially since the blog is essentially all about (humorously) passing terrible writing tips off as good advice. Nevertheless, there is still one lie in particular that stands out the most: "I am here to help."
• Blind Date: Another trope suggested by the Muse:
  "Awkward blind dates."
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The Muse believes that "if the rights to your favorite character haven't entered the public domain, it's because you didn't believe hard enough."
• Clueless Mystery: The Muse recommends that you do your crime stories this way, after all, "you don't want readers to solve the crime ahead of your detective—better withhold all the critical clues."
• Conspiracy Theorist: According to the Muse, everything is either a conspiracy or a Contrived Coincidence. No middle grounds.
  "Commit to a motif: everything is a conspiracy, or everything is a coincidence."
• invoked Creator's Apathy: The Muse assures you that research is unnecessary, you probably got everything right.
  "Yes. That is EXACTLY how quantum physics works. Well done."
• Darker and Edgier: A common suggestion by the Muse:
  "Like Wolverine, but grittier."
  "Make it grittier."
• Deadpan Snarker: Either the Muse honestly thinks her suggestions are worthwhile, or she's toying with bad writers. And considering her username is the "Worst Muse", it's probably the latter.
• Deconstruction: Of bad writers.
• Discussed Trope: The account is dedicated to pointing out and making fun of all the tropes bad writers use.
  "You SHOULD base your protagonist on you. Disguise him by giving him intense green eyes and an ancestral weapon. You don't have those!"
  "Your protagonist should be an everyman, which is to say exactly like you but with better romantic prospects."
  "Make this one the story that proves to your asshole ex beyond all shadow of a doubt that they loved you all along."
• The Muse: The Worst Muse, no less.
• Our Vampires Are Different: As noted by Alternate History as well as the image caption above, the Muse sure seems to have a certain degree of preference for this trope. We wonder why...
• Planet of Hats: According to the Muse, you should only have one culture per alien planet. "More than that, and you're just showing off."
• invoked Reality Subtext: The Muse encourages you to pour all your petty gripes into your writing; the more pedantic, the better.
  "It's about time for a thinly veiled metaphor for that unfair fight you had with your girlfriend last week."
• invoked Schedule Slip:
  • According to the Muse, "Deadlines are for hacks. YOU'RE an artist."
  • Also from the Muse: "Submission guidelines are for suckers. Live free or die."
• Tropes Are Tools: The Muse provides countless (satirical) examples of why this is the case among less-talented writers.
• invoked Unfortunate Implications: Often invoked by the Muse's tweets:
  "It's not racist! It's EDGY!"
  "Okay, but WHAT IF we lived in a world where, get this, white people were persecuted?"
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The Muse once stated that "for historical verisimilitude, [you should] replace every 'you' with 'thee' or 'thou.'"

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