HowTo talk:OTwoH

I am in awe. --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 14:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks man! But, uh oh! Wouldn't want to affect the judges' opinions before the judging is over! (as I hide our contract to give you a 25% cut of the winnings...) --S0.S0S.0S.0S0 00:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, it looks like your comment had no effect. But not to worry; little do they know that just like the last time I only make submittals to the Poo Lit if they have absolutely no chance of winning! (mu ha ha ha) --S0.S0S.0S.0S0 07:02, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

from pee review

I am submitting this so I can review it. So there. ----OEJ 00:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC) --OEJ 00:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Humour:	8	Really good. Not a side-splitter, but clever.
Concept:	8	The concept is one which has been sort of used before, but the presentation here is fresh and exceptionally well-done.
Prose and formatting:	9	Very well-written.
Images:	8	Appropriate without being overbearing. Nice.
Miscellaneous:	8	I like this a lot. Really I would make no major changes in it at all.
Final Score:	41
Reviewer:	----OEJ 00:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Endnotes

OK, this is quite a good piece. It suggests depth -- so skillfully that it may actually have it!-- and as it progresses it appears to slip deeper into some sort of meaningful discussion without ever becoming straightforward or even comprehensible. This is quite a trick to pull off, and I salute you.

The sentence "Many like you have grasped for the razor’s edge hoping to make it their own, like so many pirates of the primordial sea before them" is great.

One thing to remember here is that the reader will be grasping for comprehension. What you (apparently) aim for is the suggestion of deep meaning without every revealing it. I would counsel you to make sentences as un-confusing as possible. The confusion you are after is not the messy, frustrating difficulty of sorting out long sentences. It is (perhaps) the confusion of clear, cleanly constructed prose which MUST mean SOMETHING, if only the reader could just find the key...

So. Simplify if you can. Long multi-phrased constructions may be intellectually elegant but they have less impact than simpler constructions.

Take your first paragraphs:

"Are you deep in your rat-ridden cell, lashing out at gruel and devouring your shadows? Would you amputate both arms for just one supple chunk of grandma's fresh-baked consciousness? Is your yappity-yap toy poodle clutching its stomach, cackling madly at your chainmail lederhosen? Chances are you suffer from third degree projectile brain syndrome here in the sector/sector/sector of sex whores far from understanding this topsy-turvy world we live in."

"Not to fear! We are here to help. To begin with you must understand that you haven’t the foggiest, and are no more than a person like me or me, without nearly the strength to make the proverbial leap of frogs. Well, we’ve all been there, friend, and this manual is here to help you make it through this fast-and-easy tutorial you will never understand.Give up now."

It is nice, but remember that the first few sentences is where you lose the most readers. I might make a few small changes.

Are you cowering deep in your rat-ridden cell, lashing out at gruel and devouring your shadows? Would you amputate both arms for just one supple chunk of grandma's fresh-baked consciousness? Is your yappity-yap toy poodle clutching its stomach, cackling madly at your chainmail lederhosen? Chances are you suffer from third degree projectile brain syndrome. You are stuck here in the sector/sector/sector of sex whores. You are far from understanding this topsy-turvy world we live in.

Not to fear! We are here to help. To begin with, you must understand that you haven’t the foggiest. You are no more than a person like me (or me), without nearly the strength to make the proverbial leap of frogs. Well, we’ve all been there, friend! This manual is here to help you make it through a fast-and-easy tutorial you will never understand.[Give up now.]

These are pretty small changes, and purely provisional. Tentative examples of opinion, not even real suggestions.

Anyway.

The sentence "You perspire from all ends of your body and the hot red in your veins travels backwards" is good. I like it a lot.

BIG kudos for the paragraph structure. It's all to easy to pack this stuff into long monographs. You broke it up. That is very important.

To the moniker "Jean of Arc" I would prefer either "Joan of Arc" or "Jeanne d'Arc". Might as well either be all English or all French. Or maybe you meant a mixed-language joke. That's OK too.

The images are good. They are just right, as a matter of fact: they connect with the subject matter without beating the reader over the head. Nicely chosen.

As far as the Poo Lit, I am not too surprised that this didn't place highly. It's a niche piece, a work for aficionados of a certain kind of writing. Donald Barthelme's early stories probably would not have place highly in Poo Lit either, though he got a Guggenheim for writing them. People can be perfectly intelligent and cultured readers without liking all forms. It's all cool.

----OEJ 00:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, OEJ! This was exactly the kind of thoughtful review I was hoping for. I'll consider making the changes you suggested. (Jean of Arc was an plain error.) In the meantime, I think I'll put this pee review on the talk page, because putting this article in the mainspace is like putting a white American tourist smack dab in the middle of an Al Quaeda training camp. This article was actually created over a far greater timespan than any of my other articles. I started about a year ago and worked on it little by little, sometimes setting it aside for 2 or 3 months. The Poo Lit entry was just an excuse to get some people to read it. Thanks again for answering my personal request. --S0.S0S.0S.0S0 04:46, 23 August 2008 (UTC)