There is a particular species of bad writing that mistakes novelty for imagination and information for meaning. It is the kind of writing that believes the reader must be dazzled, startled, or bludgeoned into noticing the world‑building because the writer has no confidence that the world itself is interesting enough to stand on its own.
A recent specimen (among many) appears in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, where a Klingon cadet recounts a scene from an opera and announces that the rival house has been served the “hearts and the quadri‑testicles” of their fathers.
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This is the sort of line that tells you everything about the writer and nothing about the character.
A Klingon, one assumes, would not pause to marvel at the number of his own reproductive organs. He would not speak of “quadri‑testicles” any more than a human poet would rhapsodize about his “dual‑kidneys” or “bi‑lungs.” The term exists only for the benefit of the audience, and even then only for the portion of the audience the writer assumes must be bribed with fictional anatomical trivia to stay awake.
C. S. Lewis once warned young writers against the temptation to “tell us what is not worth telling.”
Absurdity can be delightful when it arises naturally from the world. However, the detail here is meaningless. Having a character announce, with the subtlety of a foghorn, that Klingons have four of something humans have two of, does nothing for the story. It is useless trivia.
The line stands as a small but telling monument to a larger problem in contemporary writing: the belief that world‑building is accomplished by piling up facts rather than by revealing a world through the eyes of those who inhabit it.
Write what the character would say, not what you want the audience to notice.
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