Best (and funniest!) take on the Iowa Caucus yet!

[nolabear]

As a writer this makes me laugh like hell but it’s also exactly on point! If the Iowa Caucus was a novel:


“The inherent premise of this work has so much promise, and I salute you for tackling big picture issues. It was a nervy choice, trying to come at these ideas collage-like through an intimate glance at small-town gatherings, and even if it doesn’t quite pan out in this iteration, you have a wealth of material to work with in subsequent drafts.

A few things to consider as you revise:

This may be a matter of taste, but your overall lack of clarity inflates plot tension at the expense of meaning. And frankly, I struggled a bit with your characters. You have so many at play here that I fear you have reduced them to bold brush strokes: the woman, the party mainstay, the unpronounceable golden boy, my-favorite-uncle-who-went-to-Woodstock, etc. As a reader, I had the weird feeling of being both over- and under-invested in each of them, all the while flailing for a cogent ethical thru line. You’re a canny enough writer that I am sure this is intentional, but in the early stages of this draft, I am not entirely sure to what end.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-iowa-writers-workshop-takes-on-the-iowa-caucus?fbclid=IwAR0Evt9-O06euBp99O91ywRpHG7SnyH07yJtwvu9A1otxRZyX1H8dTZ7aVE