Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25056485-20140616015157/@comment-10950063-20140617183330

All right.

The first half of this story is all summary. It's a really ineffective way of writing. Everything just gets glossed over and doesn't contribute anything. Instead of telling us he's a bad comedian, show us. Let's us hear one of his jokes. Describe his face, show us how ugly he is. The first paragraph might as well be:

There's a guy and he's a comedian, but he's not good. Then, he stops being a comedian.

That's an okay bone, but you need meat around it. Actually tell a story, don't just rush through it.

Who are those two hecklers in the first paragraph? Are they in the room when he decides not to keep pursuing comedy? This is really messy organization. It gets worse in the second paragraph. The guy just quit, but you're still going on about his comedy career.

All of this really doesn't matter, because these first two paragraphs serve NO PURPOSE. There is no reason for him to have been a comedian. As far as I can see, it doesn't come up later. Just start him out as being a clown. His decision to become a clown is nonsensical. Being a clown is hardly "being in the comedy business."

Where does he work? I know it comes up later, kind of, but that needs established. All of a sudden, he's working with acrobats. Why is he in charge of tying down ropes? Why in the world is that his job? Aside from plot convenience, it makes no sense.

Now, we're at the first thing that actually happens in the story. You breeze right through it. It's over in a few sentences. No tension or description or emotion, just some really painfully shoe-horned in details (the part where you tell exactly what injuries the acrobats sustained instead of actually writing out the scene and showing us that way).

Easely goes to pay his respects. Where? When? Again, you throw out details in a such a telling way. Don't tell us that Easely wants to kill himself,  WRITE THE STORY AND SHOW US. "Easely felt sad." That's the effect the writing has when you just tell us he's sad.

The owner of the circus is named Mr. Big. Okay, whatever. The circus is controlled by the mob. It's one of those mob circuses you hear so much about. I think that's really stupid. I think you're not trying to write a cohesive story. It really, genuinely feels like you had this idea of a clown that gets hurt and then gets revenge. And you're just rushing through so you can get to the revenge part. When you run into obstacles like WHY does the clown get hurt, HOW does the clown get hurt, you just kind of go with the first thing you think of.

And if you're willing to put in the time and write the story it won't feel that way. It still might not be the most sensical, but it's not so obvious. It's not all that can be seen.

So, the mob is angry because they lost two acrobats at their circus. Why are they so concerned? Seriously, why is this so important to them. Do they love the circus that much? They blame Easely, even though, again, why is a clown doing a laborers job? So, they come in and you do the paranthensis thing again.

These guys seem to know Easely. Again: write the story. Establish that earlier. Have them interact.

The part where Easely gets cut up is really vague and not very engaging. This is the turning point of your story, you need to make it effective. The mob guys were trying to get every detail right. Every detail of what? We never get the impression that they did anything more than cutting his mouth. Did they do other things? HOW DOES HE LOSE HIS VISION? Because he got blood in his eyes? You know that makes no sense, right?

This whole thing reeks of the Joker. Cutting mouths, being a clown, enjoying his transformation. Then, when the two mob guys fight to the death it feels like that scene from The Dark Knight. The one where the Joker has two mob guys fight to the death. The catchphrase isn't very far removed from the Joker's either.

Again, more vagueness, nothing to really be engaged with. Really that's the problem with the whole story. Everything is so rushed and so glossed over that it's hard to care about anything. Throw in a lot of kind of nonsensical details and silly things and you have a really weak story that needs a lot of work.