Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/UnBooks:Winnepeg

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UnBooks:Winnepeg

I'd just like someone's opinion on this. So hurry up. Mr.Soot Gremlin -Talk 01:55, February 15, 2011 (UTC)

I'll get it. --Black Flamingo 15:28, February 26, 2011 (UTC)

Humour:	5	I'm not going to lie to you, this article isn't all that great. But don't worry too much about it, you're a noob, you're still figuring this stuff out. I remember when I was a noob I was writing way worse stuff that this (they've now all been conveniently lost). This is a difficult one to review too, because it's one of those articles where the very foundations of the article are flawed, meaning an effective rewrite would probably involve starting all over again (although there are always basic ideas that could be retained). Anyway, I'll talk more about the concept later, let's have a look at your humour. Intro As the whole the article just seems generally littered with random jokes that had no bearing on the actual article. The biggest problem here is that you have no direction, no consistent style of humour, instead you have a stream of unrelated jokes - basically just anything you could think of, I'm guessing. In the intro for instance, you've got the dancing milk template. What on Earth does this have to do with anything? Who cares if it's been approved by mobile lactose? I don't really see any reason for the template to be there. If the article was about milk, dancing and approval maybe I could see the point (maybe), but here it's just silly. A tendency of new users I've noticed is that they try to cram every single joke they can into an article. So there's always a silly template, an Oscar Wilde quote, a reference to Kitten Huffing etc etc. I understand this compulsion, there are a lot of fun things here and you want to play. But you'd be a lot better off cutting back on the madness, using consistency and brevity in your writing. Look at some of our featured articles. They tend to just have one style of humour. Something like Salamander for instance is all nonsense, while something like UnBooks:Duty is all irony. There are no big flashing templates, silly quotes, clichés or self-referential stuff in there. Sure, you get the slightly madder ones too; something like IMDb is a bit more leftfield in the way it breaks conventions, but ultimately it's still one-note humour - it's all consistent. Introduction by the Author Here we find references to kittens (huffing of?) and Oscar Wilde, both of which became clichés six years ago. Some of the newer users might think all the old clichés and in-jokes are great, but try to see it from everyone else's point of view (and not just us older users). Not only are these jokes tired and unfunny, but they have little lasting value. One of the things I love about Uncyc is the hard work and effort its writers put into articles. They have depth and subtlety, unlike the rest of the internet which is largely meme-oriented, random and unprofessional. While I don't want to get into a rant here about "what Uncyc is to me", I hope you can see what I mean. Stay away from cheap and easy jokes about Oscar Wilde and kitten huffing. Instead, put some thought and hard work into something more original. Also in this section, the Monster.com reference might be a bit obscure. You've got to remember when you're writing here that the audience is dispersed across the whole word (hence the phrase world wide web) and that they all come from different walks of life. You can talk about stuff like this of course, but do it in a way where people are going to know what you're talking about (just say, for example, he couldn't find a job). Chapter 1 Again, there are more problems with randomness here. One line that really illustrates this is this one: "Winnepeg announced like a ship captain on peyote: "Oh, thou scavernous mag!" He needed some fresh air. That much was clear." Ironically, it's not clear at all. I really couldn't understand why Winnepeg said this, nor what it meant, or even what he was calling a "scavernous mag" nor even what a "scavernous mag" is. And as if that wasn't confusing enough, what does it have to do with fresh air? I don't think a whole lot of care has gone into making this to be honest. I don't mean to say you're a bad writer or anything, I just mean you need to slow down and think about what you're writing - get an angle on the whole thing. If there's a purpose for such a joke, (for instance, if cabin fever had made him think he's a pirate) then so be it, it's just that there doesn't seem to be any motivation behind it at all, other than it just popped into your head at the time. Chapter 2 And now we come to another old character who refuses to die; Captain Obvious (see my earlier argument against clichés). Another thing I'd like to add about this guy (whom I particularly dislike) is that the whole idea of him simply isn't that funny. It hinges on the premise that being really obvious is funny, but it's not. It would be like me writing an article about John Candy, and just having the opening line as "John Candy is fat". The only difference here is that you attribute it to a longstanding "mascot", but I don't see why that makes any difference to be honest. In this chapter the story meanders on, and you start to wonder where the hell it's going. Winnepeg tries and fails to start his car, someone verbally abuses him for it, and so Winnepeg runs him over. I don't really see how it's supposed to be funny. Again, there's no flow, and it really just feels like you're making it up as you go along. Why would someone shout "noob" at him in the street? Is this just an attempt to appeal to fans of internet-based humour? At least you didn't use the word "pwn", I suppose. The problem is, it just doesn't resemble reality in any way. It doesn't satirise anything, not cars, not transport, not even noobs really. Chapter 4 One joke I'd like to talk about here is the "finger gun". It's not too silly of a joke, and when I visualised it in my head it did look kind of funny. The only problem is it's hard to describe it in a way that makes it funny, as it's quite a visual joke. The only way you could probably do it is if you had Winnepeg say "I have a gun" and then the other guy say "that's just your finger". Then you could keep bringing up this mime weapon as a sort of running gag while they converse, and I think that might work quite well. A picture might help here too. Much like the sea captain on peyote reference from earlier, we have a very bizarre quote here that literally makes no sense to me: ""How true!" the man exclaimed. He scratched his flea-ridden hair, and drew a small notÈbook from his coat, and wrote in something. "You know, my fellow, being you must be amazing. You are so handsome and youthful, you understand hygiene, and you are smart!" "AH!" Winnepeg suddenly spun around. "BUT WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING THE BACK OF YOUR HAIR??"" The thing is, if you wanted to write a mad article with lines like this, it wouldn't be so bad (I can, for instance, see the funny side of this line), but leaping out of nowhere like this it simply doesn't work. It spoils the flow, and ultimately looks sloppy and noncommital. Chapter 5 And finally we come to the end, where the whole pointless story comes to a similarly pointless end. It really does give the impression that you couldn't be bothered thinking of a funny story, so just made it all up as you went along, shoving jokes in there when you could. The fact that there's no conclusion to the narrative only confirms this notion. The chapter itself continues the madness, sudden and nonsensical references to the protagonists daddy issues, and Winnepeg mistaking the Chinese flag for the American one. It's all a bit silly still, and overall I would recommend you read Our humour guidelines, if you haven't already. Obviously these aren't rules, and a lot of my own articles deliberately defy them, but it might help give you more of an idea on how to be satirical rather than random.
Concept:	4	One of the flaws with the UnBooks space in my opinion is that it can very easily be used to just write a load of random crap and then pass it off as a book by someone who can't write. Unless you're satirising a particular writer like this article does, I wouldn't recommend it. Everything about this just seems half-arsed, from the lack of consistency to the way the chapters suddenly end without logic. What you need here is an angle - one style of humour, and a concrete foundation to set it in. Check out our featured articles, especially the UnBooks, and see how they flow like real stories. It takes great writing skill to put together a good one, because essentially what you're doing is writing a short story, but with good jokes in. Here, you're just using the framework to tell us a nonsense story about a made up guy. Just as food for thought, you could just as easily have done this in mainspace. Sticking the word "UnBooks" in the title doesn't excuse the fact that it's a silly story about something that doesn't exist and doesn't satirise anything. As I've hinted at above, there probably isn't a lot you can do to save this, as the idea behind it (or lack thereof) is difficult to work with. It's up to you obviously, if you follow some of my advice in the humour section you might be able to go somewhere with this; give it some direction and flow. But if not, I'd be quite happy to just see you learn from this, and write a much better article next time. That's how I got so good, I just kept writing crap and having it torn apart by the old pee reviewers, and eventually I wrote something good.
Prose and formatting:	5	The prose here is equally as sloppy as the jokes, although your spelling and grammar are pretty good, so obviously you can write. I think you just need to spend a little more time revising it. Here are some things to work on... Intro You say the book was referred to as "what a piece of shit". How can you refer to something as "what a piece of shit"? You could refer to it as "a piece of shit". And in what way is it "whore like"? That makes little sense. This line; "2013, the year the entire population of the United States will be dumb enough to read anything thrown their way" is a bit clumsily written too. What do you actually mean? Why will they be "dumb enough" all of a sudden? Chapter 1 "He felt like Sarah Palin, where nobody understands you" - I don't think "where" is the right word. Sarah Palin isn't a place, it's a person (or so we're told). Chapter 4 "A plastic surgeon manipulates stuff" - This just sound unprofessional. Try not to use the word "stuff" like this. Think about what a plastic surgeon actually does, then try to reword this. Don't be afraid to do a little research. A writer can easily pass themselves off as intelligent after a quick Google search (trust me, I do it all the time) "All nice and permed and shit" - Same as above. This sloppiness and sudden coarseness of the language is totally out of line with the rest of the article.
Images:	4	At the risk of repeating myself, the images seem to be chosen with little thought. I appreciate that UnBooks can be difficult to illustrate however. The main thing you want to do here is get an image in the intro. Something big and broad that establishes what's going on here (again that will be difficult considering the madness of the article). The most preferable thing would be a book cover, which the guys over at RadicalX's Corner should be able to whip up for you (if you can't do it yourself, that is). The picture of the passerby should probably go - for one it's very silly, and secondly it isn't even in the street. Apart from that, have a think about what others you could add.
Miscellaneous:	4	Overall impressions.
Final Score:	22	Not one of the worst articles I've ever reviewed by a longshot, in fact for a noob article is may be one of the best. It would be nice to see you continue working on it too, if you can. The main thing to think about is the article's direction, which it has very little of right now. I apologise if I seem harsh at times, but I'm really just trying to help. If you heed my words your next article should be a big step up from this, and hopefully even this article can be vastly improved too. If there's anything I've said here that you want me to explain better, or if you want my opinion on anything I might have missed, please let me know and I'll try to help. I hope the review is ok, and that you enjoy the site.
Reviewer:	--Black Flamingo 20:07, February 26, 2011 (UTC)