[Brackets]

Brackets are used to contain separate, but related thought.

Their two crimes are:

1. Gimmickry
2. Halting the flow

Often the thought trapped in brackets is an aside.

An aside is a dramatic or literary technique where a character in a play or story speaks directly to the audience or to another character, but not to the other characters on stage or in the scene.

In writing, asides can be context or commentary. Often they’re used to engage the reader and might be funny or ironic.

But, this gimmick [sorry not sorry!] is overused by writers [don't tell them though!] anxious to appear conversational [write like you speak, right?] and likeable [is a writer ever likeable!?].

[lol]

That kind of copy can get annoying, quickly.

The second crime brackets commit is to break the reader's flow. Brackets are raised drawbridges protecting what lies within, creating a moat around it. The reader is forced to hurdle them.

There are less obstructive punctuation marks that do the same job, and with more subtlety and elegance.

Consider this sentence.

“Rather than give any strict rules [for which there will always be antagonists] I say use sensible judgement.”

And here, without brackets.

“Rather than give any strict rules, for which there will always be antagonists, I say use sensible judgement.”

To me, the second sentence lets the reader flow through. The first sentence looks like the writer had a secondary thought while writing, didn't know how to assemble the sentence, and so stuck it in a rudimentary structure of its own.

Anything that looks unconsidered chips away at the writer's authority.