Feedback on Danny Slowe

The Pros:


- Each reader intrigued by the premise. Everyone wanted to read more.

- Good use of language matching the scene. A bit business-y and technical, but appropriate for the story and the relationships

- Good quotable lines and vivid imagery

- The Danny character is intriguing and mysterious, and the BFF relationship between him and Carlos feels authentic, with elements of comfort and openness but also tension. There is a compelling contrast between his desire to play God via technology and his need to be in nature and "off the grid" (this was actually an accident on my part... I didn't realize this about him until I was half-way through writing the chapter)

- Good instincts in choosing to tell this story from Carlos' point of view. Multiple allusions to Great Gatsby, telling the story of a "legend" from another's point of view.

 

The Cons:

- Danny doesn't do anything in this first chapter. He has two lines of dialogue, he stares at a fire, and he pours a cup of coffee for his friend. I was trying to make him mysterious, but I need to have at least a few more subtle gestures/actions/lines to let people in to his world.

- Along the same lines, a couple readers want to know why Danny "wants" this, or what's driving him to take such a big business risk with this idea. We don't know his values or character. I tried to make it clear that even Carlos can't make sense of the situation, and that Danny doesn't need reasons/logic to have a strike of creative insight. Evidently either I didn't do a good job at this or I did a fine job and it's unrewarding to present a character without a glimpse of motive.

- The dialogue and the action was too on-point. Four guys in the woods for a weekend aren't just going to talk about work. They need to discuss other stuff, and I need to describe in better detail the things that they are doing in the woods.

- My grammar sucks balls. I knew this already. The biggest problem is I bounced back and forth between past and past perfect at random. That's a no-no when I'm bouncing back and forth between two different periods of time.

- Also I let my point of view drift between Carlos and omniscient/objective.

- Not enough dialogue and too much summary/exposition. I agree completely. I used summary in places I would naturally use dialogue in order to move the piece along. I didn't want to subject the workshop to a 15-20 page piece that needed that needed to be marked up in a week. It was good to hear my instincts were correct.

- No action took place in the woods, just talking. A couple requests to spice it up by having something happen out there. I really don't know if I want to take this advice.

- I clearly underestimated how frightening Radical Transparency is as a completely fresh idea to drop on the reader. The tone I used while laying out the details was really dry. Now that I got to see a room of people react to my premise, I want to really spice up the language in that section to drive home the fear.

- The opener is a strong line, but it's not appropriate as an opener.

 

Overall, the workshop made me feel like the gap between where I'm at and where I need to be as a writer is a bit wider than I thought. It's a little disheartening, but it's not emotionally crippling or anything. I was really wrapped up in the philosophy of radical transparency, and I figured the power of the idea would carry the novel without much extra emphasis on writing. I thought the big hurdles for me would be organizing the novel, building my world in more detail in my head and then on paper, and choosing the most compelling characters and story lines. I now realize I need work on technical skills like character development and plot pacing. I guess that's the difference between writing personal stories and writing a novel out of thin air. I lean heavily on my eye for detail when I'm writing from experience, and I don't have that available to me for the book.

I really got a lot from having my stuff workshopped. I like having my weak spots defined. I'm sure I'll be joining one or more workshops off Meetup or something like that.

 

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