Cole Eady "The Grind"

            This is a story that focuses on a young, aspiring writer in New York City named Skippy Fischer. From the onset, it is clear that Skippy wants to get into the comedy writing game and plans to do so by getting a job as a staff writer for the Midnight Slot with Stewart Donahue. When he finally gets his shot, however, he is too revolted by the people in the business to continue and simply walks out of the writer’s room. From these events, I understood it to show Skip’s change from being motivated to succeed in writing to wanting to remain uncorrupted by mainstream comedy. A lot of what is working for this piece has to do with the narrative voice. We are in Skip’s head throughout the story, and his descriptions, musings, and observations are very lucid and often very funny. The situations that unfold throughout the story seem believable and had me rooting for Skip the whole time.

            Where I got a little confused was the ending. Up until the very last page or so, Skippy appears to be willing to do anything to get his foot in the door for professional writing. He even lies about having an interview with the Rolling Stone in order to make himself seem more viable. When he finally sees behind the curtain of late night entertainment, I did not have any trouble believing he would be disgusted by the men in charge, but I did have trouble believing he would use this as a grounds to walk out on a potentially prestigious job opportunity. His concern for “victimizing people” and so forth does not come up until this last instance, and it appears to come out of nowhere. I was expecting Skippy to stand up and have some great alternative kind of comedy, perhaps putting a less derogatory spin on what the other men were saying. I wanted him to be the guy that brought the “next level thinking in order to raise the bar” mentioned on page 4. By walking away at the first sign of controversy, it took away some of Skippy’s character, at least for me. If a little work is done at the end, I think this will be a great story, more so than it already is. This was a story that flowed very easily and one that I enjoyed reading very much. Really good job.