Hi all. I've recently started a Facebook page for my daft short stories, which are all supposed to be in the horror vein, while also being amusing enough to casually flick through and smirk at. It's a bit of a new venture for me as a stand-up rather than much of a writer, so I'd be very interested in any feedback and constructive criticism anyone would like to offer, as well as taking any advice in how to best promote it (if that's even worth doing from the content).

They can all be found at the page here, and I'm trying to put up roughly one a day at the moment while I'm enjoying it so much:

www.facebook.com/ISeeYouStories

Many thanks in advance, and sorry to open up my posting on here with a plug.

Well done for having a stab and well done for writing something every day. But...

I didn't much care for them Sam. You are like Billy Bunter let loose in a donut shop with your overworked metaphors. The I see you device became irritating in the extreme. You take public figures and pretty much say the same things about them in the commonest denominator way much as racism language works. You are trying too hard to be clever with the words and so are losing sight of the funny. There is a relationship between how important the subject is and the wit in the phrasing to comment on it. Don't do one a day for now, do one a week, and pick some targets and subjects you can bring some insight to. No child wishes to listen to a lullaby by Bartok. Did you see what I did there.

That's my opinion I won't lie bold faced to you that it is a humble one - hopefully you will find more receptive ears here to what you see.

Quote: Marc P @ 20th August 2014, 8:10 AM BST

Well done for having a stab and well done for writing something every day. But...

I didn't much care for them Sam. You are like Billy Bunter let loose in a donut shop with your overworked metaphors. The I see you device became irritating in the extreme. You take public figures and pretty much say the same things about them in the commonest denominator way much as racism language works. You are trying too hard to be clever with the words and so are losing sight of the funny. There is a relationship between how important the subject is and the wit in the phrasing to comment on it. Don't do one a day for now, do one a week, and pick some targets and subjects you can bring some insight to. No child wishes to listen to a lullaby by Bartok. Did you see what I did there.

That's my opinion I won't lie bold faced to you that it is a humble one - hopefully you will find more receptive ears here to what you see.

View original

Well I asked for honesty and you're certainly not dicking me about, so I can respect that. I can't help but feel that you may have missed the point, though. I'm well aware that the metaphors are terrible and entirely overwrought - it's intended to read as a parody of bad horror, and humour's supposed to derive from the contrast between how over the top the prose is compared to how entirely childish the actual stories are. If you find the central narrative device irritating then fair enough, that was never going to be everyone's taste.

Quote: Marc P @ 20th August 2014, 8:10 AM BST

You take public figures and pretty much say the same things about them in the commonest denominator way much as racism language works.

View original

Also can you elaborate on this please? As it's a bit of a leap as far as I can see, and a hell of a comparison to make.

Racist insults pick the easiest distinguishing characteristic to highlight, and etc. as in big nosed Jew, greasy wop, filthy Arab, suave Englishman,fatso, lard arse, speccy, etc. etc.

Quote: Marc P @ 20th August 2014, 2:03 PM BST

Racist insults pick the easiest distinguishing characteristic to highlight, and etc. as in big nosed Jew, greasy wop, filthy Arab, suave Englishman,fatso, lard arse, speccy, etc. etc.

View original

Well yeah, I get that (nevertheless, thanks for the alarmingly comprehensive list of examples), but I'm a little confused as to why you'd use something as contentious as racism to make a heavy-handed comparison when I'm not writing anything of the sort. I might be spectacularly missing your point, but I'm surprised that anyone would consider having Richard Hammond destroy half of London as a giant mechanical hamster, or portraying Simon Cowell as the half-peacock leader of a sinister cult to be particularly 'obvious'. It's meant to be entirely absurdist, and the jokes have so few parallels with the actual people involved that I'm just surprised that's the conclusion you've reached.

If you just think it's shit then fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion. But bringing up racism just seems needlessly excessive.

Racists pick commonly understood signifiers. I never said anything you did was racist. Just you pick the usual targets with the usually picked signifiers. Segueing into deliberately bad horror genre is marrying two things both of which are not really in and of themselves really original.not that original is by any means always a good thing.

I gave you a list to illustrate not racism but you clearly still didn't understand it. But that's ok ... Maybe I am wrong. Hopefully as I said someone else here will find your stuff to their taste. It's a strange beast comedy I guess. Good luck with it all anyway.

Hey I looked at the facebook.

It's the 'I see you' business that limits your talent. I wrote a 4000 about a tour guide, but crippled my write because the MC/narrator had to constantly introduce 'if you look' or 'view/observe' or 'over on your left hand side...'

In your case the 'I see you' which was your 'good idea' limits the narrative drive and importantly doesn't allow the reader to immerse and gain the pleasure of the visuals and the gags that you've worked hard on...all that Cowell and plumage stuff looked like it could be great given the right context. My opinion.

I would draft on the material and move it over to a more writerly site like Wordpress where you'd have more fun, link it to your fb, then when you cough up a good one take it off the net and keep drafting it up for submission/your book.

Frustrated that I didn't get into your stuff, I don't really like the celeb humour beyond one or two lines which can make your comedy point about their vacuosity(sp) or moronic, whatever...sorry, all the best...Mat