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The shortest book in the world

Alright. My first go at it. I think the humor's well enough on spot, and none of it is TOO vulgar, but I'd like a review and some help improving it.

216.31.211.11 00:42, January 15, 2011 (UTC)

Mmm, I'll review this, I guess. By the time the day's out, it shall be done. Though not right now. Unlike some people, I can't write well while hammered... 1234 ~ 06:59, 15 January 2011

I'm mostly looking for ways to expand the thing. It's much too short, I'd think. – Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.218.107.5 (talk • contribs)

I am so sorry about not getting this done sooner - for some reason, instead of doing this when I thought I would, I wound up getting drunk again and then went and got myself banned, which is an utterly horrible excuse, but it is what happened. I am resolute now, however. 1234 ~ 22:39, 16 January 2011

Concept:	6	It's a frame story, isn't it? Story about a story, story within a story. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Or so the interweb tells me. Funny thing is, I looked, and I could not find anything concrete about the story itself - just a thing on wikipedia about 'flash fiction' and a couple of magazines, really, and all so vague... so what was the story behind the story? Is this, perhaps actually somewhat accurate? Or entirely not? Need to be careful with such things - if people don't know how accurate they are, uncertainty lingers and it can distract from the thing itself. Mind, this one is sufficiently ridiculous that the reality of it seems quite unlikely, but on the other hand, on what is it based? Who are these good writers? Why would they be meeting with each other? Since when do writers share ideas? The ones here can't seem to get along in the slightest, at least, and not all of that is joking... and what do you mean, 'like good writers should'? Are you mocking some societal expectation of writerly habits? If so, I'm missing the reference completely - not necessarily an issue, as I tend to miss most references, but it might be something to consider. Any way to clarify more, make whatever parallel you are user more clear? But it's a little too ridiculous, too... Hemingway was an American, for one - he spent plenty of time elsewhere, but why would he have been in London, and why so familiar with others there as well? What were they all doing? And were they really the most notable writers of the time at that point? Many writers, the bulk of their notability only comes toward the ends of their lives, or even after with whatever impact their works prove to have; these men are described as acting rather young, under 30, probably, and quite drunk. Grabbing each others' crotches? Strip poker? Have they no class? It's not even that funny, since this sort of low-brow debasement is everywhere, here. See it all the time, interspersed with kittens and Chuck Norris and all the other memes... you can do better. Poke fun of the folks for who they are... well, were, really. When was this? Sounds like the 20s, so was he married, then? Which wives were the lot of them even on? Hemingway married four times - what about the others? Poke fun of that? They needn't even be crude jokes; general mockery of people's inability to stay married could be even funnier, and why not even work in some of actual jokes that they told? They the story more in-depth. Lay out setting and space and atmosphere and really paint the vivacity of the moments with examples. On the other hand, don't overdo it... according to wikipedia, Hemingway himself wrote: “ If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. ” There is wisdom in that... but it is hard. It is both something when writing your own stories as well as speaking to the quality of the man himself. He knew what he was doing, at least later - would not the others have been aware of this? I suppose alcohol will erase quite a bit of sense, but do make it make sense. And was he actually a prick, for that matter? Seems like an odd word to use in the first place, especially with so little evidence of it. So he thinks he is great when drunk - most people do. Seems almost like perhaps you, or the narrator, have some sort of bone to pick with the fellow, something against him - you could use that, if so. Take it from a little irritation to a full-blown irrational narrator; when really played out, they can be rather effective - instead of just calling him a prick, you could talk about how awful he is, go into excess detail about just how deplorable the fellow's character and/or works are, possibly even go off into tangential rants, though that's more iffy as there's a good chance attempting it would wind up throwing off the flow of the story too much. But if the point of view from which you are writing absolutely hates the story, perhaps resents it, that might be something to play with. Good irony, and all that. The good articles rarely have just a single level to them, after all. Also, eww... at a lot of it, just eww. I mean, okay, they guy was keeping his napkin in his pants, but did we have to explicitly know about the semen? The folks who'd care would probably think of it anyway, and the rest don't care to anyhow. Vaguely referring to it as damp might work better with the vagueness, anyhow - could be wet from anything, that way, and folks'll substitute in whatever suits them. Semen, urine, sweat, spilt brandy... Also, I'd like to point out that drunk people tend to be absolutely horrible at flourishing. I think it's the coordination. Looks of triumph, however, are a fair bit easier, at least for some. And a guy betting his sister? Sure, he could say that, but he wouldn't be able to follow through... could lead to some awkward scene when he tries to contact her. Call, though? Consider the year. Consider what year this is for all of this; can make a bit of a difference with what is involved, with wordage, with what is proper and what propriety gets thrown out, and playing off that, you could go into observers' reactions and whatnot, as well. And why would the fellow be known later as Ernest Hemingway? Did he have some other name at the time, or something? Anyhow, as a story, overall, it's not that bad, really. Good way to talk about the flash story, though it doesn't say anything about the impact of said flash story itself - folks know the thing even now. It has a reputation, has become a piece of the lore, so can you not mention something about that? Talk about the after as well as the incident itself... perhaps as some sort of epilogue, or something. This would actually make more sense to me as an UnBook, since it is a story and it does concern a story; either would be enough in of itself. Move it to the UnBooks namespace, rename it to something like UnBooks:The Shortest Story, perhaps (need to have an account to move things, but you can also ask someone else to do it for you; I could if you want, or not... although you really might as well get an account, anyhow.) Thing is, though, UnBooks often have introductions and even sometimes conclusions separate from the body of the stories themselves, so it might work better that way to talk more about the thing itself, anyhow. Might want to look at what other UnBooks do, though, and consider what of them you think works. Might get some good examples/ideas that way, too.
Humour:	7	Eh, overall funnyish, decent details, could use more... mentioned everything I cared to in the concept section, though. Consider HTBFANJS in some regards, perhaps.
Prose and formatting:	6	So frame of the frame, from what perspective are you writing this? Who is telling the story of the story? Is it an academic, a guy at a bar, what? Why is it being told? Who and why a story is being told will affect how, the tone, the wordage, the flow - if it is by a neutral party, it will read very differently from something by a spiteful individual, after all, so consider who it is. It is fairly consistent as it is, however, and consistency is fairly good... it just seems somewhat flat, or something. Like you're holding back. But you do have basic writing down; spelling and grammar seem to be fine, so that's good. I don't need to berate about that like with some people... that gets tedious. Aaanyway, more nitpickity things... Not sure why you're using slang terms (such as 'cuz') outside the speech, as they're so sporadic and overall the prose seems more formal; consistency is important, and stuff. More links would probably be nice... Why do you have a header for the body of the story, since there is no introduction? Redundant with the title, that. Usually text comes before the first title, and in a case like this, there isn't any need for the header unless you do write an intro. Instead of just using line-breaks for line-breaking, you can also use <br> for single linebreaks, : for indented linebreaks, etc... do whatever suits the story. Just be careful you don't overdo it - there are quite a few double linebreaks (three newlines) as it is. No need to censor things - if you're going to curse, might as well curse. Asterisks just look bad, and this is Uncyclopedia, after all. It's a giant toilet and stuff, or so some people keep telling me.
Images:	0	This might be another reason to make an account - easier to get images, since you can steal/upload your own. Can also look around the site for decent ones; searching the categories or related articles will often yield some decent ones... But it does need images. They're important, break up the text, make the piece more visually appealing, cam make further or reinforce existing jokes between the files themselves and witty captions you might apply to them, that kind of thing.
Miscellaneous:	5	Score score score. Not that any of these really mean much, anyhow... scale I happen to use at any given time is pretty arbitrary. Mind the comments more, eh?
Final Score:	24	I apologise for the inconvenience, but here you are. Hopefully this came out coherent, and whatnot. The article is decent as it stands, but with work it could turn to be quite good. Consider what I have said, discard it, use it, print it out and make a paper aeroplane out of it and chuck it out the window, or whatever, but hopefully it will help and I wish you luck. If you have any questions, comments, death threats, feel free to come by and ask, or whatnot.
Reviewer:	1234 ~ 01:08, 17 January 2011

6	Concept The idea, the angle, the grand funny of the article...
	It's a frame story, isn't it? Story about a story, story within a story. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Or so the interweb tells me. Funny thing is, I looked, and I could not find anything concrete about the story itself - just a thing on wikipedia about 'flash fiction' and a couple of magazines, really, and all so vague... so what was the story behind the story? Is this, perhaps actually somewhat accurate? Or entirely not? Need to be careful with such things - if people don't know how accurate they are, uncertainty lingers and it can distract from the thing itself. Mind, this one is sufficiently ridiculous that the reality of it seems quite unlikely, but on the other hand, on what is it based? Who are these good writers? Why would they be meeting with each other? Since when do writers share ideas? The ones here can't seem to get along in the slightest, at least, and not all of that is joking... and what do you mean, 'like good writers should'? Are you mocking some societal expectation of writerly habits? If so, I'm missing the reference completely - not necessarily an issue, as I tend to miss most references, but it might be something to consider. Any way to clarify more, make whatever parallel you are user more clear? But it's a little too ridiculous, too... Hemingway was an American, for one - he spent plenty of time elsewhere, but why would he have been in London, and why so familiar with others there as well? What were they all doing? And were they really the most notable writers of the time at that point? Many writers, the bulk of their notability only comes toward the ends of their lives, or even after with whatever impact their works prove to have; these men are described as acting rather young, under 30, probably, and quite drunk. Grabbing each others' crotches? Strip poker? Have they no class? It's not even that funny, since this sort of low-brow debasement is everywhere, here. See it all the time, interspersed with kittens and Chuck Norris and all the other memes... you can do better. Poke fun of the folks for who they are... well, were, really. When was this? Sounds like the 20s, so was he married, then? Which wives were the lot of them even on? Hemingway married four times - what about the others? Poke fun of that? They needn't even be crude jokes; general mockery of people's inability to stay married could be even funnier, and why not even work in some of actual jokes that they told? They the story more in-depth. Lay out setting and space and atmosphere and really paint the vivacity of the moments with examples. On the other hand, don't overdo it... according to wikipedia, Hemingway himself wrote: “ If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. ” There is wisdom in that... but it is hard. It is both something when writing your own stories as well as speaking to the quality of the man himself. He knew what he was doing, at least later - would not the others have been aware of this? I suppose alcohol will erase quite a bit of sense, but do make it make sense. And was he actually a prick, for that matter? Seems like an odd word to use in the first place, especially with so little evidence of it. So he thinks he is great when drunk - most people do. Seems almost like perhaps you, or the narrator, have some sort of bone to pick with the fellow, something against him - you could use that, if so. Take it from a little irritation to a full-blown irrational narrator; when really played out, they can be rather effective - instead of just calling him a prick, you could talk about how awful he is, go into excess detail about just how deplorable the fellow's character and/or works are, possibly even go off into tangential rants, though that's more iffy as there's a good chance attempting it would wind up throwing off the flow of the story too much. But if the point of view from which you are writing absolutely hates the story, perhaps resents it, that might be something to play with. Good irony, and all that. The good articles rarely have just a single level to them, after all. Also, eww... at a lot of it, just eww. I mean, okay, they guy was keeping his napkin in his pants, but did we have to explicitly know about the semen? The folks who'd care would probably think of it anyway, and the rest don't care to anyhow. Vaguely referring to it as damp might work better with the vagueness, anyhow - could be wet from anything, that way, and folks'll substitute in whatever suits them. Semen, urine, sweat, spilt brandy... Also, I'd like to point out that drunk people tend to be absolutely horrible at flourishing. I think it's the coordination. Looks of triumph, however, are a fair bit easier, at least for some. And a guy betting his sister? Sure, he could say that, but he wouldn't be able to follow through... could lead to some awkward scene when he tries to contact her. Call, though? Consider the year. Consider what year this is for all of this; can make a bit of a difference with what is involved, with wordage, with what is proper and what propriety gets thrown out, and playing off that, you could go into observers' reactions and whatnot, as well. And why would the fellow be known later as Ernest Hemingway? Did he have some other name at the time, or something? Anyhow, as a story, overall, it's not that bad, really. Good way to talk about the flash story, though it doesn't say anything about the impact of said flash story itself - folks know the thing even now. It has a reputation, has become a piece of the lore, so can you not mention something about that? Talk about the after as well as the incident itself... perhaps as some sort of epilogue, or something. This would actually make more sense to me as an UnBook, since it is a story and it does concern a story; either would be enough in of itself. Move it to the UnBooks namespace, rename it to something like UnBooks:The Shortest Story, perhaps (need to have an account to move things, but you can also ask someone else to do it for you; I could if you want, or not... although you really might as well get an account, anyhow.) Thing is, though, UnBooks often have introductions and even sometimes conclusions separate from the body of the stories themselves, so it might work better that way to talk more about the thing itself, anyhow. Might want to look at what other UnBooks do, though, and consider what of them you think works. Might get some good examples/ideas that way, too.
7	Humour The implementation, how funny the article comes out...
	Eh, overall funnyish, decent details, could use more... mentioned everything I cared to in the concept section, though. Consider HTBFANJS in some regards, perhaps.
6	Prose and formatting Appearance, flow, overall presentation...
	So frame of the frame, from what perspective are you writing this? Who is telling the story of the story? Is it an academic, a guy at a bar, what? Why is it being told? Who and why a story is being told will affect how, the tone, the wordage, the flow - if it is by a neutral party, it will read very differently from something by a spiteful individual, after all, so consider who it is. It is fairly consistent as it is, however, and consistency is fairly good... it just seems somewhat flat, or something. Like you're holding back. But you do have basic writing down; spelling and grammar seem to be fine, so that's good. I don't need to berate about that like with some people... that gets tedious. Aaanyway, more nitpickity things... Not sure why you're using slang terms (such as 'cuz') outside the speech, as they're so sporadic and overall the prose seems more formal; consistency is important, and stuff. More links would probably be nice... Why do you have a header for the body of the story, since there is no introduction? Redundant with the title, that. Usually text comes before the first title, and in a case like this, there isn't any need for the header unless you do write an intro. Instead of just using line-breaks for line-breaking, you can also use <br> for single linebreaks, : for indented linebreaks, etc... do whatever suits the story. Just be careful you don't overdo it - there are quite a few double linebreaks (three newlines) as it is. No need to censor things - if you're going to curse, might as well curse. Asterisks just look bad, and this is Uncyclopedia, after all. It's a giant toilet and stuff, or so some people keep telling me.
0	Images The graphics themselves, as well as their humour and relevance...
	This might be another reason to make an account - easier to get images, since you can steal/upload your own. Can also look around the site for decent ones; searching the categories or related articles will often yield some decent ones... But it does need images. They're important, break up the text, make the piece more visually appealing, cam make further or reinforce existing jokes between the files themselves and witty captions you might apply to them, that kind of thing.
5	Miscellaneous Anything else... or not...
	Score score score. Not that any of these really mean much, anyhow... scale I happen to use at any given time is pretty arbitrary. Mind the comments more, eh?
24	Final score 1234 ~ 01:08, 17 January 2011
	I apologise for the inconvenience, but here you are. Hopefully this came out coherent, and whatnot. The article is decent as it stands, but with work it could turn to be quite good. Consider what I have said, discard it, use it, print it out and make a paper aeroplane out of it and chuck it out the window, or whatever, but hopefully it will help and I wish you luck. If you have any questions, comments, death threats, feel free to come by and ask, or whatnot.