Young Writers Society

(Extract from my book, "Earth & It's Contents")

Earth & It's Contents
by Ben Franks

The problem with it is...

Many things are wrong with the contents of Earth that cannot be fixed with a simple, one-off viewing of Die Hard 4.0. For example, there is the massive turmoil of disaster that surrounds the problematic subject that is Indian Food.

You may be thinking there are no problems worth reading about regarding Indian food, but you'd be wrong. You see, firstly, it's a lie. Whilst reading the noun, "food", and associating such a noun with the foreign country that is India, some amongst you may relate two and come to an opinionated conclusion (known as a judgement to boffins). To convince you however, that Indian food is a lie, I have arranged a collection of facts that I'm not going to tell you. Instead I'm going to pose to you a small, completely ridiculous and short argument to convince the naive amongst you that such a fact is true.

The reason why Indian food is a lie, is because back in the old days us evil gentlemen that are the Brits had a little organisation called the 'British Empire', which basically meant Britain's red carpet of trade and slave labour. Anyway, back in these days we owned little country called India, built up of rich people and slums. This little country was forced to give, more-so than trade, it's spice riches to the likes of big-man Britain. You may be thinking I have got my sizes mixed up, but you see this could be regarded as a metaphorical comparison if you read into it too much.

In short, Britain piked India of all it's bling.

Any'oo, after nicking India's spices our little Gordon Ramsay-like idiots who called themselves Chefs decided to hook up their obsession with cooking Roast dinners and butchering pheasants to attack the task of making up a plate using these little grain things some Navy boy had brung back from India. The result is Chicken Tikka Marsala. You see, the curries we associate with Indian food are actually made by the British - just using the spices we now trade for, but before, stole. This is the first reason Indian food is a lie.

For Britain, America and the land of French people Indian food isn't Indian and we're all too naive or can't care anyless to notice. So, at the end of the day, it's a lie.

Except before you begin to relax and take in that one sided, badly backed up rant, I must press you for another problem regarding Indian food. You see, I can understand Chicken but struggle to realise the benefits of Fish. I mean I'm not a Sailor, Fisherman, Navy boy or on the pay-roll of Helen Mirren, infact I'm not even Jamie Oliver or on a Sainsbury's advert, but my point stands: Fish goes with chips and peas, LEARN it. To put fish in curry is a crime. Enough said.

So, dear readers, from this I have summarised that Indian food is a lie and Fish curry is a dirty crime. And from a brief flick through of the Daily Mirror and several viewings of Ramsay's F Word, I have decided that I am right. Job done.

- December 2009.

Well written, a bit confusing at parts but otherwise good. Love indian food though.

Hey, fixed here!

I'll just be picky, I guess.

BenFranks wrote:but struggle to realise the benefits of Fish.

"realise" is spelled "realize"

BenFranks wrote:from a brief flick through ofthe Daily Mirror

this makes the sentence flow better.

I have nothing else, I love the humor and this is great for a blog/whatever you're doing thanks for posting!

Love,
Fixed

Thanks for all the reviews!

Hallo Ben. I'm Aushy, and I'll be critiquing your work today. :}

Alright, so, here's my nitpicks.

"food",

That should be "food," . I know, I thought it was that way too, I've actually had much trouble with that in the past. ;P

'British Empire',

'British Empire,' . :[}

The reason why Indian food is a lie, is because . . .

I found this slightly awkward. Perhaps try, 'Indian food is a lie because...' But I'm not going to tell you how to write your own story. Just a suggestion. ^.^

Chicken but struggle to realise the benefits of Fish.

Neither chicken nor fish is a name of a person, thus it should not be capitalized. I find it quite humorous how in this place you did capitalize it, but then towards the end of the paragraph you did not.

Mkay, nitpicking is over.

Overall:
As mentioned by Treem, it was pretty confusing yet well-written. I know you know exactly what you're talking about, but we don't. Try to make it simpler for the... how should I put this... common minds?

Alright. With all that said, it was pretty good. It was interesting.

PM me if you ever want anything else critiqued. :}

Love & Blessings,
Aushy

The reason for the capitalized names of foods is just a style to treat them as if they were names of people. It's similar to the style Jack Dee uses in his Auto-biogrophy based column book. However I can see where you're coming from.

Thankyou for the detailed review.

Hey there, Ben! June here (at last ), and just a heads up -- non fiction is apparently not my strong standing point...

Many things are wrong with the contents of Earth that cannot be fixed with a simple, one-off viewing of Die Hard 4.0. For example, there is the massive turmoil of disaster that surrounds the problematic subject that is Indian Food.

Because this is an extract, I'm not sure how adequate this statement is, but "Many things" is pretty informal-informative way to begin, and I'd prefer "There are many things".

You may be thinking there are no problems worth reading about regarding Indian food, but you'd be wrong. You see, firstly, it's a lie. Whilst reading the noun, "food", and associating such a noun with the foreign country that is India, some amongst you may relate two and come to an opinionated conclusion (known as a [b]judgement to boffins). [/b]To convince you however, that Indian food is a lie, I have arranged a collection of facts that I'm not going to tell you. Instead I'm going to pose to you a small, completely ridiculous and short argument to convince the naive amongst you that such a fact is true.

judgement should be judgment. No E. Also! The bolded line sounds confusing; read it aloud, dear.



Moving on, I think you've done a good job here, but there are things that can be improved, such as your sentence structure. Keep the humor; I like it -- very clever, but read your sentences aloud to make sure you've got cohesion and flow, dear.


On the whole, a thumbs-up-worthy piece. Keep trucking.

June

Thankyou for your review Juni!

Hey there Ben, it's Mo, here to review.

Just a heads up, I don't tend to review Non-fiction (as I don't tend to know what to say), and this will actually be my first Non-fiction review.

This was good, and very well written, although I agree with everyone else who has already mentioned that it was a little hard to follow at some times.

I found this quite humorous, so, you did a good job there. It was very interesting. You did a good job of holding my attention.

Good job, and keep writing!

*Hope I helped in some way or another.*

~Mo.

Thankyou Mo, Yes, very helpful feedback and I'm editing this book of mine constantly to try and make it easier to follow, but still hold it's ranting-style perspective.

Thanks!
Ben.

icanbefixed wrote::smt024 Hey, fixed here!

I'll just be picky, I guess.

BenFranks wrote:but struggle to realise the benefits of Fish.

"realise" is spelled "realize"

This merely depends whether your nationality is English or American.
The English use "s".

Hi BenFranks! Sorry that it was kind of delayed, but here is your review, as promised.
^^

BenFranks wrote:The problem with it is...

The problem with what? I skimmed over the first couple of paragraphs and it seems very much like an introduction to your book. If so, you should probably explain what
'it' is, but of course it's all up to you. In addition, you should probably delete the 'is' and the ellipsis. It seems kind of corny, like the intended suspense is forced.
Before I continue, I just want to apologise if I'm being too harsh!

What follows is an interesting and original little piece about food from different cultures. It's interesting because what you wrote is very much true. However, there were two minor things that really bothered me.

First off, the phrase 'Indian food is a lie' seems like it is a bit immature. I'd try to rewrite it so you sound more professional; for instance: 'there is not true Indian food that exists in our world.' In addition, when you say 'Indian food is a lie', it's inaccurate, because food exists in India.

Secondly (and this is kind of a nitpick), I think you should include food from other cultures in this piece. A good example would be China. What Americans and Britons eat in Chinese restaurants is just a spat out imagining of the real thing. There are others too, but I'm sure you can dig through and find them. If you do that your piece will seem like you're addressing all necessary aspects of your subject and not leaving anything behind.

Anyway, I really liked this piece and I'm anxious to find out what direction this book is headed. PM me if you have any questions, and once again, I'm sorry if I was too harsh!

TTFN,
Elinor.

Thankyou for the review Elinor, I appreciate your points and no, don't worry, you weren't harsh atall.

However, I'm afraid there is a slight chance you've mis-interpretted the kind of book this is. I feel this because you've asked me to structure the line "Indian food is a lie." in a more formal/professional way, which is fair enough, however this book is an opinion based ranting column and I think we need to allow some lee-way for immature comments. After all, this is meant to be humourus.

Anyway, Thanks again.
Ben.

Ah, I see now. I have reread it and I can realize your original intentions for this piece. Just ignore me for being unhelpful xD

However, maybe you can add more subtle hints to show that is not meant to be taken quite seriously. I took the piece very seriously because at its base is a very serious topic, and I thought phrases such as "Indian food is a lie" and, "We Brits had a little organisation called the 'British Empire'" were signs of bad immature writing. You're pretty subtle in your hints right now, but I think you could maybe add more while still being subtle so readers appreciate the satire rather then just think of you as a bad writer.

-Elinor

Okay...

Don't worry about it... but why - if they don't get the hints - would it go to the extent of bad writing? It might just be a wacky, livened up comment?

Anyway... I'll take in your suggestions as I'm constantly editing this book!
Thanks..
Ben,