h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Crisbecq – the Defenders’ Story - A37321751
Author: Pinniped - U183682

This Entry from 2008 is offered to PR for a second time. It’s timely to try again because it’s about D-Day, 75 years ago this week.
It was rejected the first time because it was assumed to be fictional. It isn’t fiction. It doesn’t conform to the usual EG style, that’s all.
I hope you like it, and that you’ll think about Fritz Schulte as well as about the heroes on the victorious side.

Hi Pinniped

I will let others comment on personal 'stories' or the use of 'I' in ENtries and jsut take this as is and comment part by part as I usually do.

I see the 'Luneburg' section is something like an introduction, still I find it a bit confusing.
I guess Torsten is the son? Please say his name in the 2nd sentence so we know that. What means 'Mick' in brackets in the header? There's nothing about a Mick in this section? And what about John? It doesn't tell the reader anything.

Section 'The Atlantic Wall':
Maybe 'Desert Fox' needs a footnote.

Section 'Arrival':
I would change 'I' to Fritz, that would make things easier to read. As he was talking German this is no direct quote anyway.

Section 'Terms of ENgagement'
This conversation confuses me completely, it's also not clear to me who's talking. And who is John?


Also I hope the name of Fritz was altered and you didn't give us his real name here. At least his last name should be.

I will continue later, this is quite long and I have no time to go on at the moment.

I feel like the sections 'The Letter' and 'Justification' are quite disruptive to the story at the place where they are put. Maybe move them to the end? Or rather... maybe it would be good at the top? Especially the explainations about this being Fritz memories and not necessarily an objective truth.
I also think Alderman needs some more explainations in general. About what he has to do with it all and about his book... what kind of a Doctor is he anyway?

All in all I found this very interesting to read. My main concearn is the length of this Entry. While I would not shorten it as such it would probably help readers if it was split up into a 2 or 3 parts to get 'bite sized chunks', if you know what I mean. Entries that are too long can scare readers away and it would be a pity if this Entry would not be read.

I think this is brilliant. I want more people to do this kind of oral history.

I would like a footnote for 'Bangalore torpedo', because I have never heard of one before.

I agree that it might be good to break this up into installments, but my suggestion would be to break up the pages, but link them together. I'll bet nobody would mind reading it all - it's just daunting to have to scroll that far. I think it's just an internet thing. If we had regular pages like a book, nobody would notice the length.

Thanks for the comments.
It’s obviously not a typical EG structure. It’s intended to be creative writing, which is what I do, and what I’ve always believed that h2g2 should embrace.
I will think about the comments (and try to understand them, because I don’t follow quite a lot of what’s been suggested at a first reading).
Of course I will always edit my Entries if I see that they can be improved. The corollary though is that I don’t want to diminish my writing in order to clear some hurdle of convention.
Back soon then.

Pin

I don't think it would diminish your writing at all if the few points I mentioned would be made clearer to the reader.

It has been 2 months since Pinniped last posted, which means he is classed as having ed. I'd like to propose Writing-FleaMarket in the hope that Pinniped will return and this will come back to PeerReview when he has more time.

<BB<

I think that's a good idea. I hope he'll find time to come back and pick them up in the future.