Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/User:DrStrange/Ghostwriter

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User:DrStrange/Ghostwriter

I'm stuck. It's missing something.--    18:36, August 12, 2010 (UTC)

I might be able to help. I'll have it done over the weekend. --Black Flamingo 17:20, August 27, 2010 (UTC)

Humour:	7	Ok, this is a tricky one. It's one of those rare articles where half of it is really excellent, like 10/10 perfect, and the other half, for me at least, just doesn't work. There's a very clear split between the first half and the second, and I'm not just talking about how funny it is, the style of humour completely changes. Your first two sections - the intro and the Who are These People? bit - are excellent. Your observations and jokes about a not-too-well-known stereotype - about them being ugly and unimaginitive - are hilarious. But it's your last two sections I have a problem with. At this point, the humour becomes a lot more random. The jokes about Ghost Rider are a good example here. I mean, they're a bit unrelated to your concept. The similar sounding name just isn't enough I'm afraid. My most extreme suggestion here would be to just get rid of them. Like I say though, this is a bit extreme so I'll leave it up to you. Obviously you'd have to do a whole lot more writing if you did this because the article would become little more than a stub. So... other ideas. There are things here you could develop to replace the weaker material. When you first started talking about ghost writers working on the Bible, I thought ooh this sounds good. I guess I thought you were going in a different direction, because then you started talking about flaming skulls and dangerous stunts, which again was just a bit too off-topic. It wasn't particularly funny either, it was silly, the bad kind of silly. I presume all this stuff is something to do with Ghost Rider as well, although I'm not sure. If so, this is very confusing, as you don't really introduce the concept of Ghost Rider until the next section. So my point is, perhaps you could go somewhere else with this? Because like I said, I had a good feeling when the paragraph first started, and it would be a shame to delete so much material. How about jokes along the lines of God himself using a ghost writer? Because obviously he didn't write the Bible himself. Then the last section, well, there wasn't really much I liked about that. Sorry. Again the randomness ruined it, and it kind of felt like you were struggling for ideas. The section doesn't do much to earn its header of "ghostwriters today". In fact, the closest to this you actually get is talking about the TV Ghost Writer (which I do remember, actually). Was there a reason you didn't talk about any actual ghost writers? I suppose there aren't really any famous ones. But perhaps you could come up with some other funny fictitious ghost writers? Kind of like you do with Ghost Rider but less random. Or you could talk about famous authors who use ghost writers. The more different examples you can think of the better. In fact, even the stuff about the TV show and Ghost Rider could probably work, provided they're not the only examples you give. Intermingle them with more serious ideas.
Concept:	7	Whatever you do with these last two sections, I suggest you pay close attention to your concept. I really recommend sticking to the style of the opening sections, where you're describing ghostwriters pretty much accurately (but humorously), and try to avoid the more surreal stuff. Your concept is very strong, I like the very realistic edge and how you don't go for the easy route of conflating ghost writers with actual ghosts. Although if handled correctly, the supernatural idea might be a good route to go down, and is probably the only one I can think of that might generate a lot of material. If you do have a go at something like this, just keep it consistent and avoid surreal. While I'm not trying to write it for you, I simply think that the main thing this article needs is more content. I can appreciate how hard this might be, as I certainly wouldn't know where to go after the second paragraph. But obviously, once you've got more you can focus on cutting out the weaker stuff. You say above that you feel something's missing from this article. I agree, there does seem to be. It could just be the fact that the second half of the article veers off, leaving it feeling incomplete, but I'm not sure, it could be something else. I kind of get the impression that the article isn't really going anywhere, it's not building to anything. While this isn't a major detractor, it might be something you want to think about in your revision, as an interesting conclusion, or twist, and really help pull an article like this together. Why not try something like; the article itself was written by ghost writer, because the original author was inept? Now I know self-referential stuff can get a bit tiresome, and I know it would leave your article looking radically different, but I'm not saying "you have to do this or your article will be rubbish". It's just an example of the kind you thing you ought to be thinking about if you want to give the article some more weight to it - more of a conclusion. So go deeper into the subject matter, see where else you could go. You actually already do have quite an interesting ending. I loved the stuff about the grim future of ghostwriters. But I really do think it needs expanding, preferrably into its own section. It was difficult to understand exactly what was going on in this future landscape. You kind of skim through the whole thing in about one sentence and it didn't leave a very vivid image in my mind. I will talk a lot more about the way you write in the Prose section, but for now I will just say: expand and develop this part because it has a lot of unreached potential.
Prose and formatting:	8	Ok, your spelling and grammar are pretty much perfect, no gripes there. There was one word that caught my eye in the opening paragraph - "feces" - but this could be the American spelling, I'm not too sure of that. Given the quality of the rest of your spelling and grammar I presume you're in the right. There is one problem I had with your prose, however. You tend to write in really long sentences, one after the other, for the whole article. This in itself isn't really a problem, and I admire how well you pull off such complex prose. At times though, they do get a bit too long and confusing, and I found myself backtracking to have another go at understanding them. This only happened a few times, but it really broke the flow for me and hindered the joke. Of course, when I read the joke and finally got it, I found it funny, but I think you should at least take a look at the following sentences so the reader can feel this first time around: "Disc jockeys are somewhat like lampreys who attach themselves to the sharks of the entertainment world and feed off the tiny bits of meat left behind in the wake of a commercial feeding frenzy." - While I wouldn't say there were too many clauses in here, there is a lot of information. It's quite an elaborate simile. I had to read this and the following sentence about lower intestines a couple of times to get to grips with it. It might be clearer if you introduce this as an analogy straight off by saying; "In an analogy..." This way the reader will have a better idea of what's coming. Then get rid of extraneous words like "somewhat" and maybe chuck a few commas in there to break it down. This joke, in itself, is probably one of your best, so try to make it as simple to read as possible. "Nonetheless, these creatively deceased individuals still linger on this plane of existence for the sole purpose of making sure that some spoiled, drama queen celebrity is seen as having empathy with people who can’t really afford $25 for some piece of trash, 300 page, public relations snowjob attributed to a 22 year old multi-millionaire." Again there's too much in here. It's not all bad, however. This could have been a really simple sentence, but you've packed it with funny little details, so I commend you on that. With this one, perhaps just try cutting out the bits that don't add anything humour-wise. "Piece of trash" springs to mind. As does "plane of existence". You could probably even get rid of the word "celebrity" and just say "spoiled drama queen". I reckon the sentence will flow much better then, and still be just as funny. "However, when one looks at the current, downward economic trends and one factors in the ability for modern public figures and celebrities to be totally lazy and “too busy” to communicate properly, it points to a post apocalyptic future where hordes of mechanical ghostwriters communicate for mutants who’s bodies have atrophied after years of technological assistance and baby eating." - Far too long. It just goes on and on. On the one hand, I do like the frenzied feeling this gives the text, but at the same time it's hard to take in all those clauses. I got to about "communicate for mutants" and found I couldn't remember how the sentence had started. When doing Pee reviews, I usually advise writers to use brevity in their prose. However, you do seem to have a real knack for long, complicated sentences with tons of information in them. Brevity is still something you should always consider when writing, but for the most part I think you do an excellent job with your prose. As for formatting, I noticed you emboldened your headers. I didn't have a problem with it or anything, just felt like remarking upon it since I've never seen that before.
Images:	9	Your images are good. My favourite was probably the one of the guy in the sheet next to a typewriter. That had a really funny caption too (and is probably what made me think exploring real ghosts might be a better idea than it initially seems). The only other suggestion I have is for more images, because to me three never seems enough. Maybe that's just me, after all it is a farily short article so don't worry too much. You do make a reference to the rather obscure TV show Ghost Writer though, so an image of that might be useful for those of us who don't remember it.
Miscellaneous:	6	Score determined by my gut feeling. Why so low? Well, I didn't feel the other numbers truly got across how I felt about the weaker parts of the article. It felt like I was just scoring the good stuff.
Final Score:	37	Ok, so generally speaking you've got some damn fine stuff here. I know for a lot of the review it seems like I'm trying to add my own content, but I'm really just trying to give you a good scope of where you can go next with this, and try to get your own creative juices flowing. Feel free to ignore it all. I do think, however, that the sudden shift halfway through really ruins the piece, so I really would recommend you take another look at that. I trust you can sort it out since you've written so many brilliant articles in the past. I hope the review turns out to be helpful, but if there is anything else, please leave me a message and I can have a look at any changes or clarify anything I've said here. Good luck.
Reviewer:	--Black Flamingo 09:21, August 28, 2010 (UTC)