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About the Zoetrope Studios Writers Workshop
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This is one of the best ways to get feedback on your “work in progress”. You critique the work of other writers and they
critique yours. For the most part, I’ve found the critiques to be valuable. A few were just plain idiotic, but some were so good, I ended up doing major re-writes. Two good things about the workshop: It
brings you into contact with other writers and it’s free!
But judge for yourself. Here are some of the critiques I received for The Baton, which at the time was called Killing
Assholes.
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Susan DiPlacido
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LOVED this story.
It's definitely very "in-your-face" kind of thing but I really really enjoyed it. It
had some big swings in it, sometimes you had me laughing hard, and by the end it was utterly chilling. This is so much more than a "rant" piece. I liked the use of first person, thought it was
very wise to keep the speaker somewhat of an enigma too. We never learn his name, and bits of information about him are dribbled out in such a way that it piques my interest all the more and yet I never
ONCE stopped moving forward in the story to wish for more about him. Tiny, nearly throwaway lines strike hard, such as, "But what the fuck ... with my record, I was already fucked. No loss!"
Also, he's got a very distinctive voice here. It's repetitious at times, but not in a tiring way, more in a very conversational way. And the very first time that you used the unique contraction
of "kind've" I stumbled a little because it's not exact proper grammar, but I don't know how ELSE you'd transcribe it and it works wonderfully.
It was very graphic, especially the
feeding the guy his own spit thing. The violence was new and that was utterly gross, but it sure worked, it's not what I'd call "gratuitous" or anything, it was important.
The weirdest
and most clever thing about this piece is how this guy can get me *almost* on his side with his humor and also because, let's face it, these people are assholes. Like, this simple line: My second asshole
had a cell phone.
That pretty much says it all for me since I'm one of those people who really gets annoyed by cell phones. And then the way he mentions how they tend to pass the baton right
along to the next asshole is funny, but you turn that around at the end and make it nearly terrifying.
The structure works extremely well, his quick thoughts in between interludes with the
assholes, they set up the scenes and also give us deeper glimpses into his changing (decaying? Not really) psyche as this progresses.
The "uptight white guy goes ballistic and insane"
genre is nearly a staple in films, with about one BIG one coming out per decade (Straw Dogs, Taxi Driver, Falling Down) but I've never read it much, and I also hesitate to just categorize this piece as
such, because I don’t even know if this guy is an uptight white guy. But even if it does bear resemblance, those aren't bad company to be in, and this certainly distinguishes itself. Your writing itself,
I'm almost tempted to compare it to Bukowski – yet I can't put my finger on WHY exactly. Maybe because of the seemingly utter naturalness of his prose which is still amazing at the same time because of
his uncanny knack for plucking EXACTLY the right word at the right times. You're like that, (in this piece at least) – you're not SIMPLE by a long shot, but you're easily digestible and the lack of
"purpleness" or, more importantly, the elegant directness of it is its strength. There may be more to that comparison though too. I hate to say Bukowski was "misanthropic" because he
really wasn't – in his writings he just didn't suffer fools gladly, and this piece sure has that feeling to it too. And yet, the underlying once you go deeper isn't of misanthropy at all. Maybe it's the
repeated use of the word "prick", I don't know. Maybe it was the repeated use of dingy, run-down settings. (which, btw, only added to the overall metaphor, I thought. I got the feeling this guy
was seeing the decay in the buildings around him and relating it to the slipping courtesies and decay of people) Anyhow, I mean the Bukowski thing as a compliment, and in no way am I implying that you're
just a knock-off of him either.
Anyhow, not only your style but also the story rocked. You pulled it all together and created this rare, fascinating work that pressed many buttons and took me all
over the map with my reactions to it. Extremely visceral and intelligent too. Great work.
I caught a couple of typos, figured I'd past them here so you could polish this up for submission:
**Prick could take a beating ... but soon as he quieted, I jumped up and brought my foot down into his chest as hard as I could. I could hear bones snapping. Fucking ugly sound, but his prick needed
it.
Fucking ugly sound, but this prick needed it.
**Like, the stores used to have big picture windows with lots of neat stuff right up close where you could grab them after smashing the
window with a brick. Not anymore though ... like everything was barred up and some of the stores even had cahiers inside bulletproof cages with little slots all around where they could poke a shotgun out
and like blow your head off.
...some of the stores even had cashiers inside....
**It went in smoothly and now here eyes were like pure terror with her mouth moving but nothing coming out.
Her face started twisting really weird, like she suddenly
It went smoothly and now her eyes were like ...
Other than those extremely small things, I'm sorry but I don't have any suggestions
for improvement or changes. I really think it's great as it is.
S.
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Simon A. Smith
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Overall, I liked it. Pretty damn good. The beginning was strong, (something I don't see a lot of these days) great
conversational tone and good use of repetition. I had some small problems with the first (gob) asshole scenario. You say that other people seem to notice he's a prick. They stare at him give him bad
looks, whatever. Is he only doing shitty things to people he feels are weaker than him? Does he take time picking a victim? Because, if not, wouldn't someone at least say something? And you said that the
narrator followed this dude for 4 or 5 days. How does he not get noticed even once? How do people react to him scooping up flem with a butter knife and a vitamin C container (great object by the way.)
Moving onto the gum chewer. If gum is wet it sticks to the pavement- just a nit-pick, anal thing. Oh, and a couple of times you said "Kind've of," I didn't know if that was intentional.
Anyway, you said that the walls or hallways of his apartment were like WWII soldiers. Huh? I was stuck on that.
For the phone guy, I loved the reference and comparison to the hand grenades. I
laughed thinking about some kind of yuppy sport commander with all kinds of weird parafenalia... wait paraphanalia... no no no no... parafi (ahh, whatever)
The voice stayed consistent. That was a
bonus. Is the narrator really fat? I know he eats a lot of donuts, but he seems to make fun of other fat people, so... I like the way his character is drawn. It's obvious that he's a loser but he seems
kind of oblivious to the fact. That's good, I get kind of sick of the whole bleeding heart loser archetype.
Just one or two negative things. The ending was weak. I thought he would actually pass
the duty on to someone else or something. A person per month? You say people are scared of him now? Does anyone have the slightest clue that this guy is the one murdering a slew of folks all in the same
neighborhood, or at least closely related towns?
I enjoyed it. I didn't think that I would for some reason. The title turned me off; that it might just be some wayward youth diatribing about
meaningless bullshit, but I was pleasantly surprised. You might consider changing the title, leaving something to the imagination is always nice. But, just a suggestion. Cheers
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Anthony R. Farina
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Holden Caufield on Steroids? I have to say, whether it was intentional or not, that was my first reaction. I think it was
the voice that did it for me, that self absorbed person voice that we all identify with, and at times are. I didn't stop reading once, i had to run to keep up with you, which was perfect for the piece. I
really like the idea here. How many times did you revise this? it feels like a spew like a release and that is great, i love that style of writing. I wasn't so sure of the plot here though, i mean I
understand what is happening, but I don't really get whats goin on in his head. Am I supposed to, or is this just writing for writings sake. If that is the case then Bravo, if not, then Im a moron and
have missed something. If i look for more, i see a man addicted and obsessed, he craves he needs, he searches and he creates villians for himself. He needs a nemisis, he needs not to kill, but to hunt,
the want the drive and the desire, the "passing of the baton" is the issue. That was very cool, we all have our quirks I suppose. I found myself not hating him even though he is clearly fucked
up. That was all you. You could easily made us hate me, be we don't, that is fantastic, thanks for sharing biff, tony
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