Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/UnBooks:Fluffy The Murderous Cat
UnBooks:Fluffy The Murderous Cat[edit source]
This is an UnBook I wrote a couple years ago. It got me the Spiritual Noob Ninjastar, but I never got it reviewed, because I either forgot to, or I didn't know how. Feel free to critique (I spelt that right, yeah?) my UnBook and let me know what it's worth. I plan to sell it in the flea markets next week, but I want a good price.
2K12_DAN.VRS 
02:58, December 14, 2011 (UTC)
| Humour: | 7 | Breaking it down into bits:
Break it down into paragraphs to make it clearer to read. Especially when you're going from one character to another. For instance:
Should read as:
Similes are fantastic ground for adding in over the top humour. He sweated like a pig... could easily become Sweat dripped off him like designer drugs being dropped at a gay nightclub.... I'm sure there are others that you can come up with that are better than that.
As you've noticed, I've already broken this down into paragraphs. That's the last time I'm going to mention it, but it is essential for ease of reading, which improves the comedic impact. One of the things I love about comedy is that the further that you go the better the overall impact can be. I'm putting another sugar in it next time could easily become I'm putting a fourth sugar in it next time. Media, forensics, medics and passers-by were all over the building becomes Forensics officers, uniformed officers and detectives were everywhere, along with a man selling doughnuts looking like all his Christmases had come at once. Genre comedy has plenty of cliches that you can use easily.
He'd left behind his three children and his dog, and he missed the dog terribly. The first paragraph and the other three don't really fit together the way they are. Traditionally when you do the killing off the friend bit you have a scene with the detective and the friend together, sharing a drink or something. Then, once you've established the relationship, you kill him off. The killing itself I liked though - something wonderfully ironic about being stalked by a cat. This segues us into
Other than the fact a cat kills a person, not much humorous here. Of course, the nature of this section means that you are limited in what humour you can get into this. Which to me means there is one of two ways to go here. Option 1 is to riddle this with jokes. So screaming at a pitch which is generally not possible for somebody with descended teaticles type of jokes. This is doable, but it breaks the sdistic nature of what is happening. There is shock value here that you want to capitalise on. Option 2 is the comedic break. This is like the scene in Aliens where the alien drops down from the roof of the canteen and grabs the boss and pulls him up. Lots of screaming, blood and running. Then there is half a second of silence before one of the inmates just says Fuck loudly. At the cinemas the first time this got a laugh because the audience were on the edge of their seats and it just broke the tension completely, and the laughter came from the nervousness. This is a hard thing to pull off in prose, but if you can it would be a fantastic way to end this scene.
The telemarketer part is brilliant. There is another way to go about this that you might consider. With predictive dialler technology there is often 2 seconds of silence on the line before the operator gets on. It could be that he answers and there's silence, he says "hello" and there's no response. He demands "Who the hell is this?" when a heavily accented Indian voice says "Hello, I am Billy-Bob. I would like to talk to you about your Internet bills." I'm not saying my way is better, as I like your way. Just another option. The third paragraph is at a different location. Given you've broken your story down into chapters, try and limit it to one chapter is one scene/location. Not all chapters need to be the same length, of course, but it will help you also work out what scene/location needs to be fleshed out and what scenes don't really add to the narrative (if any). One of the tricky things here is trying to balance length with quality. What you have is a good length, and you could have more in it without losing much if what is added is good quality stuff. Too long though and you'll lose the attention of... whatever, I forget. Too short and your reader feels cheated.
I love recurring jokes. The coffee motif has come through enough now that only a slight mention will bring a smile to the reader's face. The grue reference... okay, this was originally written by a n00b - I'm sure you have worked out the issue with stale jokes now, so it doesn't need anything else. One thing on the coffee though - coffee appreciation is fairly complicated. Along with the fact that coffee is fair trade, you also have single origin, different roasts, espresso, drip, plunger and siphon methods, different grinds, different milk. I could write a book on coffee appreciation, and I wouldn't be the only one who did so. I have never come across a quality barista who recommends adding sugar to coffee. This probably won't help with the article, but the idea of someone complaining about the flavour of their coffee while drowning it in sugar to me is tantamount to cardinal sin is to a vicar. Back to this chapter - it bounces around a bit. This is where you may want to rearrange te order of paragraphs so that you can see clearly the mental journey your main three characters are going through individually. Going from Trousers to Belt to Pussy to Belt takes a little mental gymnastics. The main secret to writing successful novels - your audience is stupid! By making readability as simple as possible you can become an author of Dan Brown like stature. Oh, and why does alone in the dark direct to World Of Warcraft instead of Game:Alone in the dark? For shame!
What I said about chapter 5 - mess around with the order or paragraphs in these two. Not much else to add here, except linkage etiquette. Normally links should be related directly to what the text is you're linking to. Linking to alternative text should follow a semi-logic of have humorous effect, but too much can be too much. I generally don't look at what links where when I read an article - with few exceptions where the link is a significant aspect - but this article has a few odd links around the place that could (should?) be changed.
Honestly, I have to stop. Much of what I've mentioned before also relates to the latter part of the story, and the amount of detail I've gone into so far should be enough to get the juices flowing and five you a direction in regards to what you can do here. I'll say a bit more in concept about this as well, but as for the blow by blow... Well, I'm blown. |
| Concept: | 9.5 | I'm too stingy to give a ten. I absolutely love the concept here, and you've managed to create a good narrative with comedic insight and a story that I actually want to read.
The only thing I'll say in concept is a few of the over-arching things that I would do not necessarily should be done. First is the names of the characters. The similarity of names makes the story get a little muddled, and as a result makes it hard to follow. I'd be inclined to use classic characters from detective cop shows and twist them do that the similarity is obvious. I'd definitely have a Trousers as Thursday based upon the Dragnet character Friday. The chief I'd honestly just refer to as chief in a Maxwell Smart manner but also in reference to almost every cop show everywhere where the chief is referred to as chief more often than not. That kind of thing. You antagonist has to have a motive beyond being a psychopathic cat. Of course, all cats are slightly insane, but the fact that they are descended from the kings of the jungle and the greatest of hunters and they've been reduced to mewling creatures that have bright pink collars and bells on them is enough to drive any sane creature insane. I'd also use the idea of the superior race (feline) and delusions of grandeur and smiting the unworthy. The main thing, though, is to work on your structure. If all you did to this was to rearrange the paragraphs into a slightly different order and extended the chapters so that a chapter = a scene, then you'd be well on the way to featureability. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | The stuff I said above. Spelling and grammar are fine, with the one or two odd words that are incorrect but spelled correctly. (I picked up caw instead of cat at one point. That kind of thing.)
Format is good, but again with the above points as to how to make the readability easier on your audience. The poor dumb bastards would struggle with it as it is. |
| Images: | 5 | I'm arguing with myself at the moment on this. This isn't a picture book, and to be honest just the one image would suit the story, but I would make it the image of a front cover of a pulp novel.
Have a look at http://bookscans.com/ to get an idea of what I mean. Having said that, a few illustrations of key parts of the novel - the diner from outside, blood splattered on the road - could help with the story as well. The problem is that I don't think it's needed as much as it's expected. |
| Miscellaneous: | 9.5 | Being stingy, again, but I have to admit I loved it. |
| Final Score: | 38 | |
| Reviewer: | Pup 09:46 24 Jan '12 | |