User:Cajek/HTBFANJS

Common mistakes I see

Humor

• Spelling stuff out for us: Give the reader some credit, guys!
• Total randomness: We don't get it.
• No joke set up: You have to have some serious parts to get the set up to the joke.

Concept

• Too realistic: If you're writing about how hard it is to raise a baby, for instance, normal hyperbole won't work. You're going to have to go way off the deep end.
• HYPERBOLE: A lot of authors, like me, go overboard to make something funny (Traditional Values)
• WITTY OBSERVATIONS: You could, like Jerry Seinfeld, just make witty observations for a whole article. Don't do this with hyperbole, it's too confusing: choose one or the other.

Prose and Formatting

• Repetitive words: Use a thesaurus, people.
• Redundancy: AH! Not the same! "Celebratory party" is an example.
• Unnecessary words: When you tell me something happened, then you tell me something else happened because of that, don't repeat yourself by saying "X happened. Then Y happened because of X."

Images

• Don't use overused images. Please.
• You don't need to have a hilarious caption, but it helps.
• Right aligned, please. It's easier to read the stuff around it when you set it up logically like that.

Alternate Namespaces

• Give a reason Why is this a "why?" or a "howto" as opposed to just a plain old article? Unless the humor is amazing, a straight encyclopedic style trumps a first-person style or didactic tone.

UnNews

Concept

1. How did it happen?
2. Why should we care?
3. What is going to be done?
4. What's happening now with the issue?

Style

• Remember to take out ALL opinion, that includes almost all adjectives.
• UnNews is the perfect namespace for hyperbole. No, not the user. It's the place for going overboard.
• No first person voice. Seriously.