Assignment 3
This assignment is to use supplied documentation to answer 20 questions about a fictional person's character in order to build and define that person and then to write 1000 words involving the newly created person. The assignment is here
Tutor's feedback:
Overall, a pleasing foray into comic writing. Its heart is in the right place. Needs to be tightened up considerably to work as a comic piece [tutor hopes it's supposed to be a comic piece!]
Trusts the author's comic voice, instincts are good
First paragraph is chaos! Doesn't know why the reader is being told a lot of what he is being told (and he is being told rather than shown). Author gets away with Sanders disliking all and sundry because of the joke but "was decidedly grumpy" is a definite tell. Tutor looking for the initial thought about imagine to be tied off. Also, author keeps coming back to Imagine and it's not clear what bearing that has on Sanders' life (is he on hold on the telephone and someone is playing Imagine?)
Wrong-footed start - suggestion Sanders is on the tube, drinking coffee, but it's not really clear where he is
"More critical than a very critical thing" is a sweet joke but a narrator's joke - not convinced it's a joke Sanders would make. Seems to have someone else's voice, not Sanders' and not the author's!!
"Testifying to her racism" - insufficient evidence of racism provided
Sanders' world is sustained well - totally believable. Reading self is satisfied, writing self is a little disatisfied with development of plot. Gone overboard on technical details with long conversations about servers breaking down, which could be summarised in a few words - less is more
Found "even if Bob had roused himself from his back burner" very funny
Bob's reported speech feels as if it's speech that's meant to show character, but doesn't succeed in doing that. It's nearly caricature; to take a picture analogy, a portrait that is half way between realistic and caricature is just a bad portrait. Go one way or the other. Possibly, have one extreme section of dialogue (eg long paragraph with no punctuation) and then cut out all later dialogue.
"Thinking of pretty girls; well, girls if the truth be told" exceptionally funny
Reinforcement of Jason's world (eg heroes) isn't taking the story forward, which needs to happen. Tutor is hungry for developments in another aspect of Jason's character. The dislike of computers, networks, clients has already been stated. How could a customer surprise him? What bits does he like? What is non-routine?
Watch out for point of view shift. We have been in Sanders' head and with Bob's admission to himself that his understanding of computers is woefully inadequate, we shift all of a sudden to Bob's head, followed immediately by "obnoxious", which is straight back to Jason's head. Get out of Bob's head - do it from Sanders' point of view
Overriding issue is one of structure - ramp up conflict and story