Needs Help: So You Want To.Write A Film Noir

First of all, I'm fairly certain that Self-Demonstrating Articles are meant to be limited to regular trope pages, not "So You Want To..." pages. Second of all, this page is completely unreadable as it stands. It's done in that film noir style which completely sacrifices readability for making a witty self-demonstrating article and is in desperate need of a clean-up ASAP.

Aye, this page needs a serious rewrite.

I disagree. I found this article both entertaining, and educational. While it is true that this article is self demonstrating, and is therefore breaking the rules,the narration itself can help the reader better understand how noir narration works, and how it can be presented. In fact, my only gripe with this article is that it's not a Private Eye Monologue, which would be neat. I say we leave it be. If anyone has any trouble understanding it, it's certainly not because the article is "completely unreadable."

edited 10th Dec '15 6:03:53 AM by n341100

Well, that was cringe worthy.

The bookends are actually pretty fun and worth keeping, but bulk of the page is meandering, the sections are interchangeable, and many of the instructions just amount to "go look at this trope for examples" with little to no explanation. Self-demonstrating or no, this page just isn't written well at all.

And for a completely opinionated nit pick from a self-confessed snob, it emphasizes the specific tropes of Chandler/Hammett-style noir a bit too much for my tastes, too—sure, adaptations of their books more or less started the genre, but the biggest film noir directors (Fritz Lang, John Huston, etc.) either had other distinct inspirations or developed their own takes on the tropes that are worth mentioning in their own right.

Either way, it definitely needs a rewrite, or at least some more fleshing out.

EDIT: I glanced over it earlier, but now I'm laughing myself silly that only non-Chandler/Hammett work mentioned in "Greats" is Chinatown. No Sunset Boulevard? The Woman In The Window? The Asphalt Jungle? Pfffft.

I mean, Chinatown is one of my favorite films of all time, but maybe the author should have exposed his or herself to more noir before telling people how to write it. Just a thought.

edited 11th Dec '15 2:15:23 AM by Exagge

Sounds like you are the right person for the rewrite.

If no else wants to step up to the plate, I can throw something together in a day or two. Shouldn't be too hard.

~Exagge: Any progress?

Eeek, I figured this thread had been closed in the New Year's purge. Thanks for the poke!

I wrote up two drafts, as it's not hard when it's a matter of cleaning up an article instead of starting from scratch. They're basically the same, except one keeps the self-demonstrating aspects and the other doesn't.

Now that the holidays are winding down, I can clean up at least one of them and toss it into a sandbox without too much trouble. I'll post back here when the deed is done.

~Exagge — So how does it go?

I'll PM Exagge to see what's happened.

Exagge has not contacted me and not been on since January. He hasn't edited since December.

Exagge is not banned, according to Septimus Heap, but we must entertain the possibility that they are not here anymore.

I think we'll have to assume they're not coming back to the site for whatever reason.

Sadly they didn't leave us a sandbox to work with, so somebody else will have to do this without their notes.

edited 2nd May '16 7:03:17 PM by Karxrida

Closing this as stale.