Carr's Review of Dan's Story 4/24

To: Dan Baldwin
From: Carr Kizzier

Re: “Utopia”

Dan,

Reading this story kind of reminds me of reading a Kurt Vonnegut piece. If you haven’t read much or any of his work, I highly recommend it. And I think that you’ve got something to work with here. The story of a man that has started some sort of cult/rebellion, told from a humorous perspective, sounds like a good one. I encourage you to continue along this path.
At the same time, the story itself doesn’t seem anywhere near complete. We know only the bar rudiments of what has happened – that is a fault in a story where so much depends on us being able to immerse ourselves in this world. You don’t have to do it right away, but eventually. For a good example of how this is done over time, read The Handmaid’s Tale. If you want to see how it is done in a straightforward manner, read Kurt Vonnegut.
OK. There are also some technical isues here. Like your first piece, this one has problems with verb tense. You really need to choose one tense and stick with it. There is also the problem of POV here, too. For some reason you switch to third person as Mr. Jenkins is strangling the doctor. Fix that. Overall, though, I would recommend that you change POV here altogether. I think this story would be interesting as a third person narrative, perhaps written from a character other than the doctor. That way you don’t have to probe his psyche. He can be an enigma, slowly revealed through actions and dialogue.
All right. Good luck with this one.
CK