"Brad Roberts" <bra...@puremagic.com> wrote in message news:mailman.60.1283405205.858.digitalmar...@puremagic.com... > On 9/1/2010 6:56 PM, BCS wrote: >> OTOH try and write a play that no one will watch. I'd be very surprised >> if it >> can be done. > > There's a book that was purposely written (by a collaboration of good > authors) > to be as bad as it could be.
There was a videogame (freeware) a few years ago that was deliberately designed to serve as an example of all the typical "worst practices" in game design. The great thing though, was that a lot of people found it to fall into the "so bad it's good" category :) I wish I could remember what it was. > So, of course, I just had to get a copy. I > couldn't make it past the second chapter, if I remember right. It'd take > a > seriously determined person to actually finish it. Reading it might well > void > any life insurance policies you might have. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nights > That sounds awesome :) The history and reasons behind it are really interesting, and I got a kick out of these parts of what Wikipedia said about it: ------------------------ ...obvious grammatical errors, nonsensical passages, and a complete lack of a coherent plot.... The distinctive flaws of Atlanta Nights include nonidentical chapters written by two different authors from the same segment of outline (13 and 15), a missing chapter (21), two chapters that are word-for-word identical to each other (4 and 17), two different chapters with the same chapter number (12 and 12), and a chapter "written" by a computer program that generated random text based on patterns found in the previous chapters (34). Characters change gender and race; they die and reappear without explanation. Spelling and grammar are nonstandard and the formatting is inconsistent. The initials of characters who were named in the book spelled out the phrase "PublishAmerica is a vanity press."[7] Under Macdonald's direction, the finale revealed that all the previous events of the plot had been a dream, although the book continues for several more chapters. ------------------------ That had to have been a really fun book to write.