Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/User:Iwillkillyou333/HowTo:Date a Emo Girl
User:Iwillkillyou333/HowTo:Date a Emo Girl[edit source]
Iv'e been stuck with this for some time, but Happytimes gave me some good ideas. I want to know how I'm doing on it and how I can improve on it.
Link here
Director
WILL
YOU 333 22:09, March 12, 2010 (UTC)
- I'll get this, just give me 24 of your Earth hours. --Hugs and kisses, Black_Flamingo 00:32, March 13, 2010 (UTC)
- Just a heads up - I might be an hour or so late with this due to real life commitments. Will be done soon though, I've written it but have to translate it into a language other people can understand. Hope that's alright. --Hugs and kisses, Black_Flamingo 00:17, March 14, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 5 | What you have here is a good idea which is unfortunately marred in the way you have executed it. However I think I've identified a few things that could help you when you come to working on it further. You seem to have two main problems humour-wise: firstly, a lack of development in regards to the subject matter, which causes you to rush through jokes without really getting to grips with them, and secondly, the jokes you do make could use a bit more subtlety, as they are often overstated and resort to swearing. Let's start with the first point.
Your main problem I feel is that you whizz through without taking time to make jokes. Now you clearly now your subject matter, and have a lot of valid observations here about the emo subculture. However, you need to elaborate on it for more laughs. Many times, for instance, the prose becomes a bit listy. Although you don't use the bullet point format, there are many sentence that just reel off things that emo girls like (ie. the list of gifts to give them, the list of places they like to go, etc.). Lists are discouraged by HTBFANJS - an invaluable guide I'm sure you'll agree - because they're predictable and don't get to grips with the subject matter. Remember, anyone can write a list. Instead, try to expand upon each point you make. Why do they like these things? Why do they hang out in these places? Don't be afraid to go into great detail, I'm sure you'll discover more things you can poke fun of that way. The lists are a simple problem to solve, however I feel that the article as a whole really needs expanding. As I said above, try to elaborate on every facet of the emo subculture, and try to make fun of everything you can. The section on gifts for example simply lists things that emo girls might like, as if this were a real guide and not a comedic piece (this happens a few times throughout the article). Don't hesitate to take this into more bizarre territory, as long the purpose is to satirise the emo culture. To give you an example - the article as it is just basically lists the gifts she might like, mentioning rings and piercings etc. Instead you could say they like rings for their nose, rings for their tongue, rings for their lip - and then get increasingly absurd - rings for their eyelids, rings for their spleens. Although silly, this joke satirises the piercing obsession you only hint at in your article. Obviously this isn't the best joke in the world or anything but I hope it give you an idea of what I mean. I'm sure you can come up with something much funnier. A similar thing occurs in the approach section where you say most girls would probably just have a discussion with you - this got me thinking: no they wouldn't, I'd probably freak them out with my bad social skills. Do you see why this is a missed opportunity for laughs? There is so much humour I feel you haven't tapped yet, so look out for stuff like this and I'm sure your article will be much funnier without much work. Of course, you do make some jokes in here, and many of them did raise a smile. However it seems like others are not very subtle, and could do with a bit of re-wording. Let me explain: You make several references to knives and guns, playing off the idea of emos being suicidal. While these are fine jokes and valid observations I feel they would be more successful if you made them less obvious. Instead of saying outright: don't give them knives or guns, say something like: emo girls always like jewellery, but you might want to stick to the blunter ones. The second one also makes more sense, as no sane person would ever give a knife or a gun as a gift to their partner. This overstating of jokes is a consistent problem throughout the article. My advice would be to try alluding to things like suicide or the fact that you can't tell emo boys from emo girls, rather than just stating that this is how it is. There are a few other jokes that misfire here, however they can be very easily fixed. Most of them are regarding your narration. Using |
| Concept: | 6 | Ok, you're concept is generally fine, it's more the execution that's the problem. Again, it's not something a little bit of tweaking can't fix. Conceptually your biggest detractor is that you veer off from writing in the HowTo style. Remember, this should be written as if it's a guide on how to date emos (it doesn't matter if it's not an accurate guide, but instead of just saying approach emo girls with caution, take the reader through the steps to how they can approach an emo girl). Give clear and detailed examples of what might happen depending on what actions they take. How could it backfire? You also say that the reader wants to make a good impression with the parents, again how do they do this? Try not to be so brief, and keep the guide-style consistent throughout. |
| Prose and formatting: | 4 | There are a number of problems here, but don't be disenheartened. A little time redrafting is required for all articles, probably an equal amount to the time you actually spend writing it. I will go through them one by one.
You need to work on your tone, as it is one of the most underdeveloped parts of the article. Taking a look at some other HowTos should help. The problem is, I never really got any impression of who the narrator was. Is he scarily obsessed with emo girls? Something like this is a good example of how to accomplish this style of writing. Or is he simply trying to convince the reader that emo girls are the best kind of girls, and are superior to all others? If so, take a look at this. It might be interesting to try writing from the perspective of someone who has dated an emo girl in the past, and the experience has coloured his opinion for the worst (I did get hints of this already in your article). Whatever kind of narrator you decide upon, you should still note how both these articles have a very consistent tone throughout. There are also a few instances where you break your tone, only two I think, but I would suggest revising them. The first is when you suddenly say shut up asshole when talking about Christian emos. The other is the fairly random FUCKING!! bit behind the black block. Neither of these really have any place here, unless you want to revise the whole piece in the style of an abusive narrator. Again, it's your choice, just stay consistent. Ok, it may sound harsh but your prose are pretty weak. This is something I feel I can judge fairly objectively, however it is not a judgement on your writing ability, it could be you've just rushed through writing this an not double checked it yet. While spelling and grammar are not terrible, you seem to regularly misuse basic words (eg. saying founded instead of found in the habitiat section, and you regularly confuse has and have, this happens again in the habitiat setion). So much so that a lot of it ends up not making sense. I recommend several things here - Try reading it aloud to yourself, this should give you a better idea of how to make it sound natural and not awkward. Also, feel free to make use of the proodreading service, they're always happy to help. The final issue here is with clarity. It's not a huge problem, in fact I find it's something all first drafts tend to suffer from. On more than one occasion, you contradict yourself. For instance, you say emo girls are usually solitary and stay by themselves, but then in the same sentence add that they can be in a group of girls. It's the same when you talk about taking her on a date. You say don't take her anywhere fancy, but then contradict this by saying unless she likes that sort of thing. Don't backtrack like this, just say what you mean the first time around and make sure it's clear. Your reader won't find it funny if he or she doesn't know what you're trying to say. This happened to me when I was reading it. You say there is an obvious reason you don't buy them stuffed animals. I read your article several times and I couldn't figure out what this obvious reason was. |
| Images: | 5 | Your images aren't bad but could be so much better. Although just having sexy pictures in an article has worked before, there may be something funnier you could do rather than just going for the sexploitation angle. Plain, unfunny images like the ones you use are fine (and I think actually more encyclopaedic), however you really need humorous captions to give them a purpose for being there. For example, in the first one of the girl looking down, you could make fun of the fact that emos always photograph themselves from odd angles, or looking down at the floor. Again, it's the same point I have made before - go into detail about emo girls' behaviour and how to deal with it. If you would like some pointers, there is an article I feel could help. It's not Uncyclopedia (shock, horror) but the images used in it are the kind I would probably recommend going for (but with girls in them, you'll see what I mean when you look at it). Anyway, it's here. |
| Miscellaneous: | 5 | Averaged. |
| Final Score: | 25 | Right, so as I said, you have some really good ideas here, and with a bit of work you could vastly improve it further. I realise that was a long review, so to sum up generally, I would say the parts that need your most immediate attention are the lack of development and the awkward prose (most of the other problems are merely offshoots of these two, I feel). Neither should be too difficult to sort out, so I'll leave it in your capable hands. If you want any further clarification on anything, or want me to take a look at changes you make, please get back to me. Hope that helps. |
| Reviewer: | --Hugs and kisses, Black_Flamingo 01:23, March 14, 2010 (UTC) | |