First things first CW: violence, suicide, sexism, racism but all done satirically if that changes things
This is an etherpad (It's like google docs but without the evil corporate data mining) link to it: https://rich.etherpad.com/p/r.11e54ca11de75dd143910cae7a71a4ba
The premise for the story is a game show as absurdist allegories for capitalism in general, and USA in particular. Long term I'm hoping to animate the text into like a super stylized subtitle to really emphasize the game show-y-ness and be able to control tone and timing to help humor come through in text. But that'll be a lot of additional work so I'm trying to get the text locked down (or depending on feedback locked away) before that.
So, any feedback is appreciated, particularly at this point just pass/fail "Do you think this project is worth continuing with?"
Thanks and I hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing!
Okay, I'm pretty sure I've got a handle on this. About a third of the way through, mind you, but you're using such a George Saunders voice I'm ready to talk reader retention. If that's not what you're shooting for, then for the love of god study In Persuasion Nation. These comments are coming from the perspective that you shot for a Saunders voice. If you didn't, yeah just go read Saunders instead of any dribble I've got for you lol.
In the style of all good writing critiques I'm giving you the shit sandwich (praise bread, shit filling, praise bread) for the opening third(ish).
Praise: You've done an admirable job of mimicking Saunders's frenetic voice. The sudden, over the top violence played for gruesome laughs, the detached announcer, it's all very Saunders.
Shit: It's not Saundersy enough. Your sentences often run on for too long when they'd match your voice by maintaining their punchiness. Also, one of the tricks I've learned when dealing with crowds is to shine a spotlight on a single member, or members interacting with some thing. Visual details would be great, a sprinkling is enough to sell a mood that would require many more words to state explicitly. You're also not amping the violence high enough, fast enough, crazy enough imo. This is down to preference, but in In Persuasion Nation for instance, the grandmother is offed on the first page (I think, don't quote me), and by page 4 or whatever we're already dealing with a psychopathic potato chip rapidly transmuting into God. Look at what you have, and decide what can be combined. Can the car commercial and the guy entering the idling-car-in-the-garage segment be smashed together, for instance?
Praise: Again, you're doing a remarkably good job with the Saunders voice and setup thing here. And I say that as someone whose top 3 books list includes The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (e.g. I really like Saunders's stuff). A good way to stretch your muscles on this might well be to cut out/combine whatever you can in here, and then add new events or details that keeps the word count the same.
Haha, well I was regrettably unfamiliar with Saunders so I didn't know that's what I was doing. But I checked him out a bit and, yeah, right on point.
I feel really lucky that the first person to provide feedback is into that sort of style. I had initially thought to take things quite a bit further, but I got nervous it might lose the humorous tone for some people. But yeah it makes sense that the people who would be willing to read it in the current state would prefer to read it in an amped up state.
I'm excited to try the other suggestions as well. I'm getting at least vague notions for ways to implement most, if not all. Hopefully they come together as well as I hope they might.
Thanks again for the feedback, this will provide a useful focus for the next round of revision :)
Oh boy, oh boy! If you didn't know Saunders before this you are in for G-dang treat. Arguably the best living American writer, with some very lefty themes (though prob a lib in real life... he writes for the New Yorker). Seriously, just google Saunders short stories and go nuts with them.
In Persuasion Nation is closest to what you're doing, though obviously different. Escape from Spiderhead also goes really hard, but isn't strictly in the vein of your story... I just love it. Civilwarland in Bad Decline might also give you some ideas.
But yeah, you should at least be aware of him, if only for the style similarities and the fact that he looms immense in American Fiction. Any magazine you try to sell this to will have an editor who knows and probably loves him, and most folks who are willing to read short stories probably will be too. You might get away with fewer knowing him based on your online format, but I wouldn't count on it.
Hit me up with the next round of revisions for sure. You planning on selling it to a magazine?
Yeah man, I don't get how I've gone this long without becoming familiar with him. Right to the top of the reading list
And thanks again, I really appreciate your support. I haven't given much thought about what to do with it yet. So far it's been kind of a 'for the fun of it' see if I could entertain some folks sort of thing. But yeah, if it gets to the point where there's a chance people would pay for it, that would be incredible
So since I got the 'point' early on I didn't finish it. I suspect the point at the end is similar to the 'point' at the beginning. Focus on creating an upending of expectations in your drafts after condensing everything. Pay attention to how Saunders upends expectations and try something like that, if you're lost.
After a few rounds of edits (keep me in the loop please), you should absolutely submit this to journals. I never would have submitted anything to anywhere if a published critique partner hadn't pushed me into it, so I'm doing that for you. If nothing else, check out the grinder.diabolicalplots.com and start to build a spreadsheet of magazines, with genres, styles, and submission periods. You can get a future draft of this published if you want to.