Forum:"juicing" up a few articles
I'm beginning to think that not many people are looking at some of my articles I made because they might think it isn't funny. Anyways look at these articles and tell me what you think and how I should "juice" it up to be funny. I'm doing lots of Pokemon jokes, although I may go into political laughter on demonizing the GOP without the means of pissing of anyone.
Here are the articles:
Glenn Beck
Torchic
Piplup
Manaphy
DickNet
--Dark Paladin X 16:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
- Check out Pee Review. ;) -
Admiral Enzo Aquarius-Dial the Gate 
16:25, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
- Also, please stop talk about "juicing" in quotes. Unless you really do mean what I'm innuendising you to mean... -- Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 15:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Dark Paladin did put the articles on Pee Review. I reviewed Piplup. Now it's someone else's turn. My advice to DP is: the articles I have read do not need juicing up. They need good grammar and solid, clear prose. They need interesting, intelligent humor. (With regard to this, many people find references to rape neither interesting nor intelligent.) The articles need variety in point of view and in voice.
Many young writers do not realize immediately that everything they write has a narrative voice. That voice is composed of the author's word choices, his sentence structure, and his way of structuring the piece. If the writer always writes his prose in "the most natural way" he is still using a particular voice. It is just that he has chosen the easiest one for him to use, and decided -- implicitly, without much thinking about it -- not to do the work of consciously choosing a voice for a piece.
If I were teaching a writing class for someone like DP I would do what a lot of other writing teachers had done in the past: I would assign some exercises to (hopefully) open up a sense of the choices available to a writer.
- Describe a scene without ever using passive verbs like is, are, or was; or passive constructions like will be or has been. (This is a warm-up. It should not be hard.)
- Write an article in the voice of a John Wayne character -- short sentences, plain words, hard-edged imagery. ("Your conscience is like a bullfrog, Sheriff. It makes a big noise but it don't ever stand up on its hind legs. It don't ever fight for nothin'." That kind of stuff.)
- Read "Baker's Blue-jay Yarn" by Mark Twain (here). Then write a paragraph-long joke in the same style as Twain's story.
During revision of a piece every word and every sentence should be examined and restructured to fit the tone and style you want, in that particular place, in that particular article. Every article has a narrator, and you as a writer have a great deal more power if you consciously choose the voice of that narrator instead of just "letting it happen". Every article should have a consciously-chosen narrative voice, and if you are writing all your articles in the same voice then you are forfeiting a great deal of your potential power as a writer.
Anyway. All this is just boring silliness that is most likely misguided and inconsequential. ----OEJ 17:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
- Wow. You're all smart and, um, stuff. You're the Bruce Lee of whateverthisis.
“It is like a finger pointing toward the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”
- Sir Modusoperandi Boinc! 18:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
- No, it's like a finger pointing up my nose: I want to people to think I am indicating my brain but really I am just feeling up my boogers. Or something. ----OEJ 18:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
- To tell ya the truth, my english sucks (even though I'm a U.S. citizen). and OEJ, what other verbs I can use other than those you mentioned.--Dark Paladin X 06:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)