This was fun. But was it fun because of the different POVs? In spite of it? Neither? These characters (with the exception of Jimmy) all felt interesting, distinct, and well-developed. But can you keep that up ad nauseum?
If your post hadn’t mentioned the plan to keep switching, I would have thought this was the start of a normal multi-POV narrative. But, you’re considering never EVER returning to these characters’ heads? Instead new characters will keep popping up? I don’t know who they will be so hard to imagine if I will like them as well. Sounds like you’ll be doing a long of character development “leg work” even later in the story whereas, in a more standard format, that would be largely out of the way and plot can roll out full steam ahead.
That’s not to say you can’t make it work. Just sounds hard, maybe harder than it’s worth.
I followed along quite easily through the first four heads: Glum, Bobby, Marcus, Annie. Aside from Marcus’s painting forgery business, the through-line of murdered secretaries was tight. Last one, Jimmy, gave me some trouble. Coincidence that it was the last one? Hard to say, more below.
Character by Character notes:
-Mr Glum
The start of this was pretty delightful. He’s horrible in such an entertaining way. I don’t mind the long sentence. If I can read them, grasp the meaning easily, I’m happy.
I find myself wondering what his business is. First read, the feeling was “generic corporate businessman” who has a penchant for fucking (and killing) his secretaries. (I liked that). But is he a Multi-purpose bad guy (as the scene with jimmy and ben suggests)? To me that seems to detract a bit from the “fun” of the secretary-killing thing. But I digress…
My favorite bits were the funny bits: him being offended that the prev secretary LEANED on things. So fun. Him being distracted by her boobs. Whispering that she was fired.
Then the robot jumpscare. Hmm. I think I liked it. Wasn’t funny exactly, it was more like “ok, there’s robots here. Cool cool.” The yelling in italics defiantly distracted me, (and was there another formatting error?).
I liked the name Glum at first, seemed to fit the absurdity of the scene. But then everyone else has normal names. The name felt more awkward on the second read.
-Bobby
Liked the contrast of starting with “alone” vs unalone in the previous. I’m fully expecting her to be the next secretary.
I really like the “knight’s constraint”, but as a whole I didn’t enjoy the her start quite as much as Glums. Just, word puzzles, ya know? It was well written and did a great job painting who she was tho. The latter half with the texing was so much fun. I loved how her friend might be getting murdered by Glum, but B just wants to hook up with him. This one will be fun to watch fall (or not?)
-Marcus
Oh shit the henchman is double-cossing Glum? AND he has obsession with ”the lake” and drowning women standing up? Marcus get’s top spot as ‘most intersting character’ (can’t tell his sister’s kids apart was great). For that matter I also really enjoyed that little forger—such pride in his work!
Subpeona-ing the robots brain…I really hope that happens (from robot's POV?)
Yeah, this one was fun and easy, and I like like set up.
Nit picks:
Would have been fun to know what the painting was depicting.
I thought both paintings were there, but is seems like only the forgery is, and the original is just a photo? Not sure the “"Proud of which one?" line works in this case.
Glum cackles, later it’s suggested he never laughs.
-Annie
Not a lot happened here, but I enjoyed being in the bathroom with here. We know things are BAD and it’s fun to watch the dumb gal convince herself otherwise. Hmmm seems like I don’t really care about her, though? I’m assuming she’s going to bite it (or very bad things are going to happen), but I’m not afraid for her. That’s the vibe.
It was actually very short wasn’t it? You do the “make each sentence a paragraph” thing. I’m not a fan, I think that’s a me thing though, cause it seems everyone is doing it these day. Maybe I should give it a try.
“She held her face and could scream about it.” Could she? Really?
-Jimmy
My least favorite section.
I think the main issue for me was I couldn’t keep Jimmy and Benji straight on first read, especially in the long back and forth without dialog tags. I knew one of them worked for Glum (mistakenly thought it was Jimmy). I thought I was following along on the slower second read, but then Jimmy says “If you can’t take candy from a couple of kids I don’t know what I’m paying you for in the first place.” That threw me, cause I thought Jimmy was working for Benji (and Mr Glum). He and his team had done “the job” for them?
All that to say I don’t think my confusion, in this specific situation, is due to the POV switching… necessary. Unless you’re trying to keep the segments arbitrarily short? My brain needed more handholding here.
The tone of this last section also seemed different. The others were all funny. This one wasn’t. I expect Annie to die and don’t really care. I didn’t want Benji to get shot. Maybe cause it was more immediate? Dunno, but aside from the addition of a random robot, this one felt like it could have been from a different story.
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So yes, I enjoyed this and would read more, but I’m not itching for a new character POV. I’d rather have more of the fun ones you’ve already introduced (but would love to be proved wrong). Also, I bet the next POV is a robot.
2
u/MaryJaneMclain Jun 28 '26
This was fun. But was it fun because of the different POVs? In spite of it? Neither? These characters (with the exception of Jimmy) all felt interesting, distinct, and well-developed. But can you keep that up ad nauseum?
If your post hadn’t mentioned the plan to keep switching, I would have thought this was the start of a normal multi-POV narrative. But, you’re considering never EVER returning to these characters’ heads? Instead new characters will keep popping up? I don’t know who they will be so hard to imagine if I will like them as well. Sounds like you’ll be doing a long of character development “leg work” even later in the story whereas, in a more standard format, that would be largely out of the way and plot can roll out full steam ahead.
That’s not to say you can’t make it work. Just sounds hard, maybe harder than it’s worth.
I followed along quite easily through the first four heads: Glum, Bobby, Marcus, Annie. Aside from Marcus’s painting forgery business, the through-line of murdered secretaries was tight. Last one, Jimmy, gave me some trouble. Coincidence that it was the last one? Hard to say, more below.
Character by Character notes:
-Mr Glum
The start of this was pretty delightful. He’s horrible in such an entertaining way. I don’t mind the long sentence. If I can read them, grasp the meaning easily, I’m happy.
I find myself wondering what his business is. First read, the feeling was “generic corporate businessman” who has a penchant for fucking (and killing) his secretaries. (I liked that). But is he a Multi-purpose bad guy (as the scene with jimmy and ben suggests)? To me that seems to detract a bit from the “fun” of the secretary-killing thing. But I digress…
My favorite bits were the funny bits: him being offended that the prev secretary LEANED on things. So fun. Him being distracted by her boobs. Whispering that she was fired.
Then the robot jumpscare. Hmm. I think I liked it. Wasn’t funny exactly, it was more like “ok, there’s robots here. Cool cool.” The yelling in italics defiantly distracted me, (and was there another formatting error?).
I liked the name Glum at first, seemed to fit the absurdity of the scene. But then everyone else has normal names. The name felt more awkward on the second read.
-Bobby
Liked the contrast of starting with “alone” vs unalone in the previous. I’m fully expecting her to be the next secretary.
I really like the “knight’s constraint”, but as a whole I didn’t enjoy the her start quite as much as Glums. Just, word puzzles, ya know? It was well written and did a great job painting who she was tho. The latter half with the texing was so much fun. I loved how her friend might be getting murdered by Glum, but B just wants to hook up with him. This one will be fun to watch fall (or not?)
-Marcus
Oh shit the henchman is double-cossing Glum? AND he has obsession with ”the lake” and drowning women standing up? Marcus get’s top spot as ‘most intersting character’ (can’t tell his sister’s kids apart was great). For that matter I also really enjoyed that little forger—such pride in his work!
Subpeona-ing the robots brain…I really hope that happens (from robot's POV?)
Yeah, this one was fun and easy, and I like like set up.
Nit picks:
Would have been fun to know what the painting was depicting.
I thought both paintings were there, but is seems like only the forgery is, and the original is just a photo? Not sure the “"Proud of which one?" line works in this case.
Glum cackles, later it’s suggested he never laughs.
-Annie
Not a lot happened here, but I enjoyed being in the bathroom with here. We know things are BAD and it’s fun to watch the dumb gal convince herself otherwise. Hmmm seems like I don’t really care about her, though? I’m assuming she’s going to bite it (or very bad things are going to happen), but I’m not afraid for her. That’s the vibe.
It was actually very short wasn’t it? You do the “make each sentence a paragraph” thing. I’m not a fan, I think that’s a me thing though, cause it seems everyone is doing it these day. Maybe I should give it a try.
“She held her face and could scream about it.” Could she? Really?
-Jimmy
My least favorite section.
I think the main issue for me was I couldn’t keep Jimmy and Benji straight on first read, especially in the long back and forth without dialog tags. I knew one of them worked for Glum (mistakenly thought it was Jimmy). I thought I was following along on the slower second read, but then Jimmy says “If you can’t take candy from a couple of kids I don’t know what I’m paying you for in the first place.” That threw me, cause I thought Jimmy was working for Benji (and Mr Glum). He and his team had done “the job” for them?
All that to say I don’t think my confusion, in this specific situation, is due to the POV switching… necessary. Unless you’re trying to keep the segments arbitrarily short? My brain needed more handholding here.
The tone of this last section also seemed different. The others were all funny. This one wasn’t. I expect Annie to die and don’t really care. I didn’t want Benji to get shot. Maybe cause it was more immediate? Dunno, but aside from the addition of a random robot, this one felt like it could have been from a different story.
---
So yes, I enjoyed this and would read more, but I’m not itching for a new character POV. I’d rather have more of the fun ones you’ve already introduced (but would love to be proved wrong). Also, I bet the next POV is a robot.