Em dashes, parallel constructions, rule of threes, etc are not bad prose.
The first by itself, I agree — I’ve seen plenty of effective prose that uses em dashes well (LLMs are not great at using them, though, seemingly because they don’t really have the notion of catching a breath). The latter two are powerful and meant to be used sparingly; anything more and they certainly become bad prose.
The first by itself, I agree — I’ve seen plenty of effective prose that uses em dashes well (LLMs are not great at using them, though, seemingly because they don’t really have the notion of catching a breath). The latter two are powerful and meant to be used sparingly; anything more and they certainly become bad prose.
score 1 · canonical