what I liked [WHAT WORKED FOR ME AND RESONATED IN MY SOUL:]

the setting. I can totally picture this dingy, formica-topped little shitty diner, you set that up very well.

I like the device of using the news anchor. it feels fairly natural and it’s an unusual, interesting way to give us the back story.

the segueway from the story to the traffic is fucking FLAWLESS. seriously, christ, I loved that. it’s so realistic.

“Nights have been cold lately. Odd for a California city.” — I hope this is legit foreshadowing because it’s an excellent, subtle piece of it. also a nice way to throw in the setting.

I’m excited to see where this goes. I think it has the potential to be absolutely epic and creative. just please don’t make it some gross bloody ‘yeah let’s kill people, FUCK YES I LOVE KILLING PEOPLE’-fest :[ cause ew.

also, I really think you should have that old man come back in. he's this quiet, practically meaningless background character and it could be very shocking if he returned, but well set-up.

what I did not like [NEXT STEPS:]

ok. first off, the character voice. I feel like you keep writing these characters that are bitter badasses. they’re constantly mocking everyone in the world around them and eventually you get an impression that they’re extremely high and mighty, which is not what you’re going for [or I doubt it.] it’s just- “I snort derisively.” that automatically makes me start disliking the character, ngl. and it continues in descriptions of the anchors. I feel like a much more endearing tactic, one that will immediately win readers to the character’s side, is NOT generalizing and lumping people off in negatives ways like this- actually pointing out unusual details about these people, ones that distinguish them from their group. and if you still wanna make it negative, don’t go ‘oh all these guys are blah blah’. actually point out little details about the dude. I think something I noticed in Fight Club [don't kill me. I's just sayin u no.] is that he uses physical descriptions, tiny ones, to show the character. like, the note that the guy has the huge white teeth, much more effective than a lumped generalization. I think if you didn’t do it in most of your stories it wouldn’t rub me the wrong way, but at this point I read all your stories in Ed Norton’s bored monologue about how much he hates the people of the world, which was cool for 2 hours, but. you know. you have the same issue in other small places- “the more idiots here, the more fodder”, “my fat aging bastard of a boss,” “this fucking faggot”, and of course the last line. it’s just so impossible to like this guy and I hope we aren’t supposed to in the future.

btw, I guess I might be hypersensitive to things like this, but having him say ‘fucking faggot’ seriously just turned me off the whole thing. idk man, I guess people really are dicks and they really do say things like that, but. D: seriously, once again, if we’re supposed to like this guy, it’s very difficult to do right now.

ok, so the first paragraph spoken by the news anchor? the first sentence is constructed awkwardly. if you say ‘our top broadcasts’, it should be a brief summary list of all the top stories. or just make it broadcast singular. then, news stations are very careful not to be passive. they make their sentences not only active but downright assertive. so that first fragment, “the events…Massacre” should be blended to make an actual, action-y phrase. also, you can just totally cut “who resided here during that time,” just make it ‘citizens.’ it’s too wordy. oh, side note, ‘Scorpi City’ made me think this was a Brawl-type fantasy world for some reason [from the name, since it's like "Scorpion"] so I was jarred to figure out this is plain California. also, the whole reasoning thing- “This can possibly be attributed…”- seems contrived. I mean, if a news station puts forth a possible answer to a trend, they’re going to back it up and there’s none of that here. it just feels like a blatant setup for his next badass line about the ‘new fodder’.

second news paragraph- “may or may not come” – wordy, just cut it to ‘possible danger’ or something similar. then on the boss’s dialogue- “Ain’t nothing making me leave my town.” ok, if you’re gonna do dialect, you have to go all-out or you look halfassed and like you really don’t know how to write in an accent. cut the ‘g’s on both ‘nothing’ and ‘making’ or just make him speak normally, since he seems to do that afterward, anyway. yeah, might just wanna keep his accent consistent all through. makes more sense. near the end- “around these times.” idk, sounds awkward for some reason, maybe put something more obvious than ‘these times’, like what’s actually happening.

ok, off-topic, YOU NEVER CALLED ME. what the fuck’s up with that. I feel like I’ve been stood up you silly bastard. i put it on your facebook and everything, which is kinda dangerous! jeez! D: